.lYoFTHE I. 

UNiTEDSmrESi 




Class .E.l 18 .__ 
Book.^J-^F_ll 
GoByrightN" 



COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY 



HISTORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Uniform cloth binding, 75 cents per volume 

1. OLD TALES FROM GREECE By Alice Zimmern 

2. THE HISTORY OF ROME By Mary Ford 

3. THE HISTORY OF FRANCE By Mary C. Rowsell 

4. THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.. By Mary Ford 

5. STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY... By Mrs. Fred. Boaz 



THOMAS WHITTAKER 

2 AND 3 Bible House New York 



The Children's Library 




AMERICA 



BY 

MARY FORD 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS WHITTAKER 
2^3 Bible House 




• vl 



V'.^ 



1\ 



THE LIBRARY O 

CONGRESS, 
Two CoHiEs Received 

OCT. 23 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASsdcVXXa No, 

J / C 2> UL> 
L COPY B. 



1 



Copyright, 1 901 
By Thomas Whittaker 



t 

•4 

i 

I 



Contents 

CHAPTER I 

Virginia 

1492 The Story of Columbus and his Discovery of 
America. 
The Founding of the English and French Claims 

in North America. 
Attempts to Plant Colonies. 
1584 The Naming of Virginia. 

1606 The London and Plymouth Companies. 

First Expedition of the London Company to Vir- 
ginia. 
The Story of John Smith. 

1607 The Founding of Jamestown; the First Perma- 

nent English Settlement in North America. 

The Struggles and Trials of the Early Colonists. 

The Story of Pocahontas. 

The Gold Fever. 

" Starving Time." 

The First Parliament. 
1619 The Beginning of the Slave Trade. 

Massacre by Indians — Vengeance of Whites. 

Troubles with the Mother Country, 
1652 The Story of Berkeley's Governorship. 

The Founding of William and Mary College. 

jii 



iv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER II 

MASSACHUSETTS, CONNECTICUT, RHODE ISLAND, 
MAINE 

1606 First Attempt to Plant a Colony in New Eng- 
land. 
1614 John Smith's Expedition. 

1620 Landing of the "Mayflower" at New Ply- 
mouth. 

A Terrible Winter. 
1623 Planting of New Hampshire. 
1628 Planting of Massachusetts Bay. 
1630 Founding of Boston. 

The Story of Roger Williams and Rhode 
Island. 

The Story of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. 

The Quakers. 

The " Merry Mount." 

The Planting of Connecticut, Maine and New 
Haven. 

Harvard College Founded. 
1637 War with the Pequods. 
1675 The Story of King Philip. 

Sir Edmund Andros. 

1689 *' King William's War." 

1690 First Expedition Against Canada. 
The Witchcraft Scare. 

1702 " Queen Anne's War." 

Second Expedition Against Canada. 

Port Royal Taken by the New Englanders. 

1744 " King George's War." 

1745 Surrender of Louisburg. 

1748 Peace Between England and France. 



CONTENTS V 

CHAPTER III 

NEW YORK, DELAWARE, NEW JERSEY 

1576 Martin Frobisher, the First White Man in New 

York. 
1609 Discovery of the Hudson River. 
1614 The Dutch in the New Netherlands. 

The City of New Amsterdam. 

Victory Over the Indians at Horseneck. 
1664 New Amsterdam Changed to New York. 

1689 The Story of Leisler's Governorship. 

1690 Midnight Attack on Schenectady. 
1697 Pirates — The Story of Captain Kidd. 
1 7 10 Settlement of Germans in New York. 
1745 Trouble with Indians. 



CHAPTER IV 

MARYLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, NORTH AND SOUTH 
CAROLINA, GEORGIA 

1634 Planting of Maryland by Lord Baltimore. 

Something about George Calvert's title, and 
where the name Baltimore originated. 

1681 The Story of William Penn. 

1682 " The City of Brotherly Love." 
1684 The Story of the Carolinas, 

Indian Troubles. 
1732 Georgia and Good John Oglethorpe. 

Spaniards Invade Georgia, 
1742 Victory. 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V 

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

1754 The Cause of the War, 

First Appearance of George Washington. 
The Story of the Hero's Boyhood. 

1755 Braddock's Expedition to Fort Duquesne. 

1756 Montcalm Takes Oswego. 

1757 Cruel Massacre at Fort William Henry. 

1758 Louisburg Taken by Amherst. 
Siege of Ticonderoga. 

Fort Duquesne Gives In. 

1759 Taking of Niagara and Ticonderoga. 

The Wonderful Siege of Quebec. The Loss of a 
Hero. 
1763 The War Ends in Triumph. 



CHAPTER VI ] 

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Great Britain Decides to Tax America. 

America Protests. 

The Story of Benjamin Franklin. 

1765 The Stamp Act. 

1766 Repeal of the Stamp Act. 

Tax Levied on Glass, Tea, Paper, etc. 
Soldiers in Boston. 
The Boys of Boston. 
" The Boston Massacre." 
1770 Repeal of Tax on All Articles Except Tea. 



CONTENTS vii 

1770 " The Boston Tea Party." 

1774 The Boston Port Bill. 
Preparations for War. 

1775 The First Battle in the War of Independence. 
Surrender of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
The Battle of Bunker's Hill. 
Washington, Commander-in-Chief. 

1776 British Abandon Boston, 

Montgomery and Arnold and Their Daring Ex- 
pedition Into Canada. 
Charleston Will Not Surrender to the British. 
"Common Sense." 

Declaration of American Independence. 
Long Island the Scene of a Struggle. 
Dark Days for General Washington. 
A Victory on Christmas Eve. 

1777 Benjamin Franklin in Paris. 

The Young Marquis de la Fayette. 

The Battle of Brandywine. 

Burgoyne's Great March. 

Victory at Stillwater. 

Surrender of Burgoyne's Whole Army on the 

Heights of Saratoga. 
Washington's Winter Quarters. 

1778 England Tries to Make Peace. 
The British Retreat to New York. 

1780 Clinton in South Carolina. 

The Last Stand of Colonel Sumter. 

The Treason of Benedict Arnold. 

The Story of Andre. 

Great Race Between the British and Americans. 

The Last Stand of Cornwallis. 
1783 The Struggle Ends in Victory for the United 
States. 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

STORIES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

1789 The Constitution of the United States. 
George Washington First President. 
The Story of Alexander Hamilton. 
Mercy in Pennsylvania, 

1790 Security on the Frontier. 

1792 Kentucky joins the Union. 

1793 France unfriendly. 
Washington's Farewell Address. 
John Adams, President. 

1799 Peace with France. 

Death of Washington. 

The City of Washington founded. 

Census taken. 
1 80 1 Thomas Jefferson, President. 
1803 Louisiana purchased from France. 

War with the Dey of Algiers. 

Decatur's daring feat. 

Death of Alexander Hamilton. 

" Orders in Council." 

1811 War declared with Great Britain. 

181 2 Campaigns in Canada. 
Victories on the High Seas. 

1813 Pike's dying victory. 
Death of Laurence. 

" Don't Give up the Ship." 

1814 The Battle of Bridgwater. 
Washington in the hands of the British. 
Great Victory at New Orleans. 

Peace with Great Britain. 
1817 James Monroe and the *• Monroe Doctrine. 



CONTENTS 

1819 Spain cedes Florida to the United States. 

1 82 1 Missouri the twenty-fourth State in the Union. 

1825 John Quincy Adams President. 

1826 The Jubilee of American Independence. 
1829 General Jackson, President. 

1832 Iowa joins the Union. 
1837 Martin Van Buren, President. 
1 84 1 General Harrison, President. 
1845 James K, Polk. 

Founding of the Smithsonian Institute. 

Texas joins the Union. 
1848 Victorious war with Mexico. 
1848 Death of John Quincy Adams. 

1848 Taking of California and discovery of gold. 

1849 General Zachary Taylor, President. 
1849 California becomes a free State. 

Millard Fillmore. 
1852 General Franklin Pierce. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WAR BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH 

1820 «' The Missouri Compromise." 
1848 to i860 Division among the States. 
1856 Buchanan elected. 
1 86 1 Abraham Lincoln, President. 

The Story of His Boyhood. 

Secession of the Slave States. 
1861 The Confederate States of America. 

Anderson's brave Stand at Fort Sumter. 

Declaration of War between North and South. 

Gosport Navy-yard seized by the Confederates. 



X CONTENTS 

Union soldiers shot down in the streets of Balti- 
more. 
Fear at Washington. 
Maryland safe to the Union. 
Missouri safe to the Union. 
The Battle of Bull Run. 
" Stonewall Jackson." 
McClellan Commander-in-Chief. 
The « Merrimac " and the " Monitor." 

1862 McClellan's great Peninsular Scheme. 
Marching to Richmond. 

The Seven Days' Battles. 
Retreat of McClellan. 
Pope's Campaign. 
Second Battle of Bull Run. 
Lee's Invasion of the North. 
The Battle of the Antietam. 
Lee Retreats to Virginia. 

1863 Freedom for Slaves. 
Death of Stonewall Jackson. 

Lee's Second Invasion of the North. 
The Battle of Gettysburg. 

1864 Vicksburg yields to the Unionists. 
The Battle of Chickamauga. 
Campaign in Louisiana. 

One Chance for the Fleet. 
A Brave Attempt to Capture Richmond. 
The Battles of the Wilderness. 
Fighting at Petersburg and Richmond. 

1865 Sherman's Great March. 
Atlanta surrenders. 
Lee's last Stand. 

His Farewell to his Army. 
End of the War. 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER IX 

FROM THE DEATH OF LINCOLN TO THE END OF THE 
CENTURY 

1865 The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. 
Johnson and his quarrel with Congress. 
Slavery abolished in the United States. 
The " Emperor " of Mexico. 

1866 The Atlantic Cable laid. 

1867 The purchase of Alaska. 
Nebraska added to the Union. 

1868 The Days of President Grant. 

1876 Rutherford B. Hayes and the Strike. 

The last fight of the Indians. 

The World's Fair. 

Colorado joins the Union. 
1881 The Story of President Garfield, and his sad end. 

Chester Alan Arthur President. 
r884 The Story of Grover Cleveland. 

The Chinese become a trouble. 

The Anarchists. 

1888 Benjamin Harrison President. 
Settlers in Oklahoma. 

Four more States added to the Union. 

1889 The town of Johnstown almost destroyed. 
1893 The World's Columbian Exposition. 
1893 Cleveland President again. 

1895 The Venezuelan boundary dispute. 

1896 The Gold and Silver Parties. 

William McKinley President ; the new Tariff. 
1898 The War with Spain. 
1900 McKinley President again. 
igoi Murder of President McKinley. 

Theodore Roosevelt, President. 



History of the United States 



CHAPTER I 



In early times the people who lived in Europe, 
Asia and Africa had no idea that beyond the 
broad Atlantic Ocean there was another great 
continent. Daring and bold as were the sailors 
of those times they had never dared to set sail 
across that unknown sea, and all their trading 
was done with the East Indies. There they 
found many rich and beautiful things, but it was 
a long and weary journey from Europe. There 
was no canal at Suez then, and when they had 
sailed down the Mediterranean, they had to un- 
load their ships, and carry all their goods 
across the Isthmus to the Red Sea, where they 
took ship again across the Indian Ocean. The 
merchants did not like all this trouble, and were 
always trying to find a way to the East by sea 



I 



2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

only. One man especially thought about it a 
great deal. His name was Christopher Colum- 
bus, and he lived in the town of Genoa in Italy, 
and spent much time in making plans and 
charts. He was one of the very few people in 
those days who believed that the world was 
round, and this made him think that a way 
could be found to the Indies by sailing to the 
west. He was a poor man and could not afford 
to hire a ship in which to explore, so he went to 
the chief men in his native town, and begged 
them to help him, but they only laughed at him 
and called him mad. Columbus, however, was 
very much in earnest, and as he could not get 
help from his own countrymen, he went to the 
King of Portugal. The King listened to all he 
had to say and then, without a word to Colum- 
bus, secretly sent a ship to the west to see if 
what Columbus believed was true ; but the 
men grew frightened when they lost sight of 
land, and speedily came back, saying that Co- 
lumbus must have dreamed. Columbus next 
journeyed to Spain, hoping that the King and 
Queen of that country would help him. On 
the way thither he stopped at the gate of a con- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 3 

vent to beg for food and drink, and the Superior 
came out to talk to him. Columbus told him 
his story, and he was so much struck with it 
that he sent a message to the King and Queen, 
urging them to give the poor man their aid, and 
so they did ; indeed it is said that the Queen 
even sold some of her jewels to get enough 
money to fit out an expedition, and at last after 
years of patient waiting, Columbus found him- 
self in command of three small vessels and a 
hundred and twenty men. On the 3d of 
August, 1492, they sailed from Spain, and soon 
afterwards left the Canary Islands behind them, 
and boldly plunged into the " Sea of Darkness " 
as it was called, which no vessel had ever yet 
entered, and of which they had no knowledge 
and no chart. The great faith of their leader 
kept up their courage for a time, but when they 
had sailed about 600 miles the men began to be 
afraid. Every day they were getting further 
away from home, and there was no sign of the 
rich country Columbus had promised them. As 
time went on they grew more and more angry 
and frightened, and at last refused to go any 
farther; some of them even wanting to throw 



4 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Columbus overboard. He tried to calm them 
but in vain ; they would only promise to go on 
for another three days, and if by that time there 
were no signs of land, they said the expedition 
must be given up. You can imagine what an 
anxious lookout Columbus kept as the three 
days went by, and very soon he saw signs that 
they were nearing land. Floating seaweed ap- 
peared, and flocks of birds were seen, some of 
which rested all night on the masts of the ships, 
flying away in the morning to the west. On the 
night of the third day Columbus was standing 
on the deck, trying to see through the darkness, 
when suddenly a light flickered on the horizon ; 
he shouted to the crew, who came rushing on 
deck, and in the dawn they saw spread out be- 
fore them a green and beautiful land. Great 
was the joy and excitement of the adventurers ; 
they forgot all their anger and fear, and pressed 
round their leader with shouts of joy. A boat 
was lowered and put for the shore, and as the 
sun rose, Columbus, richly dressed, and with a 
drawn sword in his hand, took possession of the 
country in the name of the King of Spain. A 
few natives gathered round them on the beach ; 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 5 

they were copper colored, with long straight 
black hair hanging over their shoulders, and 
wearing scarcely any clothes ; at first they were 
rather shy, but soon became friendly, and gave 
the adventurers food in return for trinkets and 
beads. 

When Columbus found that they were not 
on the mainland as he had hoped, but only 
on an island (one of the Bahamas) he went 
on looking for the great continent he felt sure 
must be near, and sailed about among the 
Islands, but as he could not find it he returned 
to Spain. He was joyfully received by the 
Spaniards, and loaded with praises and hon- 
ors; but he could not rest until he had suc- 
ceeded in his search. Three times more he 
journeyed to the west, and in 1498 he landed 
triumphantly in South America, which to the 
very last day of his life he believed to be part 
of Asia, probably India, never dreaming that 
he had discovered a new continent ; and he 
called the natives Indians, by which name they 
were ever afterwards known. 

The way having thus been opened for them, 
adventurers from all parts of Europe flocked 



6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to the west, eager for gold and glory, and one 
of them, a man named Amerigo Vespucci, 
claimed to be the real discoverer of the main- 
land, although Columbus had landed there 
more than a year before him. It was not 
Vespucci who gave his own name to the new 
land. It was a German professor named Mar- 
tin Waldseemuller, a maker of maps, who first 
suggested, in 1507, that the new land be called 
after its discoverer. He meant no injustice to 
Columbus, who, it was then believed, had only 
discovered a new route to Asia. The name 
America was at first applied only to Brazil ; in 
time it came to be applied to all South America, 
and finally to the whole Continent. 

The King of England sent out two explorers, 
John Cabot and his son Sebastian, natives of 
Genoa in his employ, who discovered North 
America, sailing along the coast from Labrador 
to Virginia, and thus founding the English 
claim to the eastern part of North America. 
The King of France sent out two expeditions, 
which explored the coast as far north as New- 
foundland, giving it the name of New France, 
and founding the French claim to Canada, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 7 

These were followed by Spaniards who discov- 
ered the Mississippi, and Florida, the '' Coun- 
try of Flowers," and many others. 

The first attempt to plant a settlement was 
made by some French people, who landed in 
what was afterwards called South Carolina, 
but quarrels broke out among them, and many 
died, the others returning to France. A sec- 
ond attempt was made in Florida, but with 
the same result. 

In 1583 an Englishman called Sir Humph- 
rey Gilbert was given a grant by Elizabeth, 
his Queen, ^^of such remote, heathen and bar- 
barous lands as he might discover and oc- 
cupy " j and sailing to Newfoundland he took 
possession of that country ; but being drowned 
at sea on his way back to England his attempt 
came to nothing. 

In the following year another Englishman 
called Sir Walter Raleigh was given a grant, 
and after a short visit to North Carolina, re- 
turned to England, loaded with furs, sassafras 
and cedar, and also bringing with him tobacco, 
which he found on Roanoke Island, and the 
potato. On arriving at the English Court he 



8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

told such wonderful stories of the beautiful 
country, and of the rare and precious things 
he had seen there, that the Queen was de- 
lighted at the idea of her new and important 
possession, and ordered it to be called Vir- 
ginia, in honor of herself, the " Virgin " 
Queen. Raleigh, encouraged by his success, 
sent out a second expedition to plant a colony 
on Roanoke Island ; but, hearing that gold 
was to be found in South America, the men 
hastened thither, and, after having wasted their 
time and money in a fruitless search, returned 
to England empty-handed. 

In 1587 a hundred and seventeen men were 
sent out, but as there was war between Eng- 
land and Spain at the time, two years went by 
before any ships from home could be spared 
to visit them, and in the meantime they all 
died. Several other expeditions ended in a 
similar manner. 

In 1606 two English Companies were formed 
for the purpose of planting colonies in North 
America ; they were called the London and 
the Plymouth Companies, and James I. divided 
Virginia between them, giving the northern 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 9 

part to the Plymouth, and the southern part 
to the London Company. These two com- 
panies were made up of merchants who wanted 
to open up trade with America, and work the 
mines of precious metals, of which they be- 
lieved the country was full. 

The London Company began by sending 
out three ships and a hundred and five emi- 
grants under the command of Captain New- 
port, who took with him a sealed box, which 
was not to be opened until they reached their 
new home. Long before the voyage was over 
the leaders of the party began to quarrel, and 
one of them, named John Smith, was put into 
irons by the others, who pretended that he had 
planned to murder them, and make himself 
King of Virginia. The truth was they were 
jealous of him, as they could not help seeing 
how fitted he was to be their leader ; he was so 
brave, persevering, and clever at making the 
best of things. His life hitherto had been full 
of adventures ; when he was fifteen he had run 
away from his master, an English merchant, and 
traveled on foot all over Europe. When he ar- 
rived in Austria he joined in a war against the 



lo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Turks, and, after becoming famous for his dar- 
ing courage, was taken prisoner, and sent as a 
slave to Constantinople, where he was very un- 
kindly treated. But he soon escaped, and be- 
gan wandering again from country to country, 
arriving in England at last just in time to join 
Newport's expedition to the west. 

After sailing across the Atlantic the little fleet 
was blown by a storm into Chesapeake Bay, and 
there the adventurers saw with delight the mouth 
of a wide and beautiful river, up which they 
peacefully sailed, stopping every now and then 
to talk with the Indians on the banks, who were 
mostly friendly ; one chief even promising to 
give them as much land as they wanted. On 
the 13th of May, 1607, they landed, and calling 
the place Jamestown, after King James, founded 
the first real English settlement in North Amer- 
ica. The sealed box was opened, and found to 
contain the names of those who were to form the 
council, and a set of laws for the government 
of the colony. A Governor was chosen, but 
Smith's name, which was on the list, they struck 
out. 

It was indeed a desperate venture that this 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES ii 

little band of colonists had set out upon ; the 
whole country round, though beautiful, was only 
a wilderness, covered with vast treacherous 
swamps and dense forests, where bands of 
Indians lurked, armed with bows, arrows and 
tomahawks. The colonists, who were nearly all 
gentleman adventurers and knew little or nothing 
about farming, never thought of sowing any 
crops on their first arrival, and when the pro- 
visions they had brought with them had all gone, 
they suffered greatly from want of food, and 
from illness, caused by the hot damp climate. 
In their misery and trouble they began to think of 
John Smith, and his cleverness and cheerfulness, 
and they remembered that all this time they had 
kept him in prison. Half ashamed, and yet 
longing for his help, they set him free, and with- 
out a word of reproach he at once set to work. 
He built a fort as a defense against the Indians, 
and made long journeys into the wilderness to 
get food from the friendly natives. He was a 
very determined man, and when he could not 
get what he wanted by fair means he took it 
either by force or cunning ; once he even seized 
a favorite Indian idol, and would not give it up 



12 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

until he had received a large store of provisions 
in ransom. Unfortunately, however this con- 
duct set the Indians against the colonists, and 
they began to keep a sharp lookout for any 
chance to injure them. They did not make any 
open attacks, but lay in wait to fall upon the 
colonists when they were off their guard. 

One day Smith went out to explore the little 
river Chickahominy ; he sailed up it as far as 
he could, and then landing, left the boat in 
charge of his men, only taking with him two 
followers and two Indian guides. When he was 
out of sight the Indians, who were lurking in 
the woods close at hand, came out and seized 
the boat, and then set off in pursuit of Smith. 
They soon overtook him and attacked 
him, and in a few minutes his two com- 
panions lay dead, and he was wounded; 
but he fought on, retreating at the same 
time towards the boat, not knowing that 
the savages had seized it ; when suddenly the 
ground gave way under his feet, and he sank 
almost up to his neck in a swamp. With a 
shout of triumph the savages set upon him, and 
carried him off prisoner to their Chief, Pow- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 13 

hatan, who held a council, and condemned him 
to death ; but as Powhatan raised his club to 
strike the fatal blow a cry was heard, and Poca- 
hontas, his pretty little twelve-year-old daughter, 
ran forward and throwing her arms round Smith, 
begged her father to spare his life. Powhatan 
hesitated for a moment, but he could refuse his 
little daughter nothing, and setting Smith free, 
sent him back to Jamestown with a dozen guides. 
The colonists were now in a sad state, hunger, 
illness, and war had reduced their number to 
thirty-eight, and they were so unhappy and de- 
spairing that all they wanted was to give up the 
struggle, and go back to their native land. 
Smith vainly tried to cheer them up, and en- 
courage them to persevere a little longer, but 
they would not listen to him, and began to make 
ready to return to England in one of their little 
vessels. This he was determined they should 
not do, and rushing into the fort he pointed the 
heavy guns they had set up there at the ship, and 
threatened to sink it. The men, seeing that he 
was in earnest, suddenly disembarked, and re- 
turned to the town. Smith worked among them 
night and day, cheering them on with hopes of 



14 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

better days, until even the Indians grew to ad- 
mire and respect him, and meanwhile Poca- 
hontas, always their faithful friend, kept them 
supplied with food. 

After a time Captain Newport returned with 
another little fleet of ships, full of emigrants, 
and provisions in plenty. But now when they 
had no longer any fear of starving, the colonists 
forgot all that they owed to Smith, and refused 
to be led by him any longer. One day when 
matters were in this state, a man came running 
into the town with the news, that he had seen 
gold lying on the banks of a little stream, north 
of Jamestown. Every one gathered round him 
eagerly, and, as they listened, a wild thirst for 
gold seized them, and leaving everything, they 
rushed off excitedly to the place, and began dig- 
ging up the yellow rock, and piling it on a ship 
to be sent to England, working night and day 
in the hope of making great fortunes. But a 
great disappointment was in store for them, for 
when the precious cargo reached England it was 
found to be nothing but common mud, filled 
with little pieces of shining stone. 

Smith, meantime, finding himself deserted by 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 15 

the colonists, went off to explore the coast of 
Chesapeake Bay. With great care and trouble 
he examined every inlet, river and creek, and 
did not go back to Jamestown until he had fin- 
ished his provisions. When he arrived, the 
colonists were all quarreling and discontented, 
and they hailed Smith with joy, and begged him 
to come and be their leader again ; but he re- 
fused and only waiting to collect provisions, 
went back to Chesapeake to finish his explora- 
tions; he also visited the countries round, 
fighting with some of the Indians, and trading 
with others, and becoming widely known for his 
courage and wisdom. On his return to James- 
town the colonists again urged him to become 
Governor, and he at last consented ; order was 
restored and for a time the affairs of Virginia 
prospered. 

In 1609 the London Company sent out nine 
more ships, commanded by Sir Thomas Gates 
and Sir George Somers. The ship which car- 
ried these officers was wrecked on the coast of 
one of the Bermuda Islands, and it was months 
before they could get to Jamestown. The emi- 
grants on the other ships were a rough and 



i6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

reckless lot, mostly consisting of men who, from 
idleness and wickedness, had been unable to get 
on in their native land, and Smith had great 
difficulty in keeping them in order. The ar- 
rival of these ships made the Indians fear that 
the white people were becoming too powerful, 
and they determined to surprise Jamestown and 
kill every man, woman and child in the colony ; 
but news of this plot reached the ears of Poca- 
hontas, and resolving to save her friends at any 
cost, she secretly left her father's wigwam one dark 
and stormy night, and made her way alone and on 
foot through the forests to Jamestown, just in time 
to warn Smith of their terrible danger. The whole 
place was at once prepared for an attack, and 
when the Indians cautiously stole up, they found 
every one on the alert, and had to retire into the 
woods as rapidly as they could. Less than a 
month afterwards Smith received a dangerous 
wound, and went back to England for proper 
treatment, and directly he was out of the way 
the Indians besieged Jamestown. The colonists 
had now no means of obtaining food and they 
soon began to starve ; indeed, after a few weeks 
they had nothing left, and, mad with hunger, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 17 

were even compelled to eat the dead bodies of 
the Indians they killed, and their own dead 
companions. Their sufferings were frightful, 
and never afterwards could they speak of that 
terrible "starving-time," as it was called, with- 
out a shudder. One by one they died, and 
when at length the Indians retreated, only sixty 
colonists were left out of five hundred. The 
men who had been wrecked on the Bermudas 
now arrived, and dismayed by the miserable 
state of the colony, they agreed that the best 
thing to be done was for them all to leave the 
country and return to England. But they had 
hardly started when they were met by Lord 
Delaware, the new Governor of Virginia, who 
had come over with a number of emigrants and 
a large supply of provisions, and he persuaded 
them to return with him to Jamestown and make 
one more effort ; and after a time under his wise 
rule the affairs of the colony began to improve ; 
other emigrants arrived and new towns were 
founded. 

In 161 2 an English Captain, who was trading 
up the river, met Pocahontas, and inviting her 
on board his vessel, took her captive to James- 



i8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

town, thinking he would thus obtain great power 
over the Indians, and compel them to give him 
anything he wanted. Powhatan, however, was 
furious at such treachery, and as he refused to 
come to any terms until his daughter was re- 
stored to him, she was sent back ; and with her 
came a young Englishman named Rolfe, whose 
heart had been won by her beauty and noble na- 
ture, and with the consent of her father they were 
married. This was a very good thing for the 
colonists, as Powhatan became their firm friend, 
and insisted that all the Indians for miles round 
should be friendly too. The young couple soon 
after made a journey to England, where Poca- 
hontas was received with much honor and in- 
terest, but, to the great grief of her husband 
she died just as they were about to return to 
America, leaving behind her a little son, from 
whom some of the oldest families in Virginia 
are descended. After her death Rolfe came 
back to the colony, bringing with him the 
tobacco plant from Roanoke Island, and it 
soon became one of the chief products of the 
colony. 

When Virginia was first planted, all the land 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 19 

was owned in common, and the produce of each 
colonist's labor was placed in the public stores ; 
but it was soon found that this plan did not an- 
swer, as the men did not work nearly so hard as 
they would have done for themselves and their 
families alone. It was therefore agreed that 
each man should be given three acres of land 
on which he might work for the greater part of 
his time only an hour or two each day being 
spent in the pubHc field. This new rule was a 
complete success, and after a time more land 
was divided out among the colonists and all 
work in the public field given up. 

Emigrants were still continually arriving and 
there were now about four thousand people in 
the colony, living in eleven settlements called 
boroughs, and ruled by a Governor and Coun- 
cil ; but as they wanted to have the same sort 
of Governments as they had been used to in 
England, each of the eleven boroughs chose two 
men to be their representatives, whom they 
called burgesses, and these burgesses formed an 
Assembly or House of Burgesses. The first 
meeting of this representative body, the first of 
the kind ever held in our country, met in the 



20 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

choir of the church at Jamestown on the 3d of 
July, 1619. 

In 1620 a Dutch vessel came to Jamestown, 
bringing twenty Africans, who were bought as 
slaves by the colonists ; and this was the begin- 
ning of the system of slavery, afterwards to be 
the cause of much trouble and distress. 

Virginia was now fairly prosperous, and every 
one was happy and contented, when just as their 
prospects seemed brightest, a new and terrible 
trouble burst upon them. Powhatan, their 
friend, was dead, and his successor, Opecan- 
ough, a clever, wicked man, was secretly 
their deadly enemy, and by threats and bribes 
he persuaded all the tribes round to join with 
him in a horrible plot to destroy every man, 
woman and child in one of the settlements. 
There was no Pocahontas now to warn the un- 
fortunate whites, and not a word of the plot 
reached their ears, the Indians meantime pre- 
tending the greatest friendliness for them, even 
on the very morning the attack was to take 
place, bringing them presents of game. At noon 
the signal was given, and in a few hours three 
hundred and forty-seven men, women and chil- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 21 

dren were cruelly slain by the savages ; others 
too would have been victims had not one Indian 
repented at the last moment and told his master 
just in time to send word to the nearer settle- 
ments. The remaining colonists rushed off in 
hot pursuit of the Indians and did not rest until 
they were all either slain or put to flight. 

This great misfortune attracted the attention 
of King James to Virginia, but not in a satisfac- 
tory way for the colonists ; he no longer allowed 
them to choose their own burgesses, and made 
several new and hard laws, under which the 
people suffered and grumbled until 1636, when 
a very tyrannical Governor was appointed, 
named Sir John Harvey, whose rule was so hard 
and cruel that, unable to bear it, they seized 
him, and sent him prisoner to England with two 
of their Burgesses to explain the matter. But 
Charles I, who was now King, was very angry 
at the disrespect shown to his representative, and 
without paying any attention to what the Bur- 
gesses had to say, he sent the Governor straight 
back to Virginia with full power to punish the 
rebels. In 1639, however, a new Governor was 
elected and Charles allowed the Virginians to 



22 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

elect their own Burgesses again, for which they 
were so grateful that in the Civil War which 
soon afterwards broke out between the King and 
his Parliament, they remained loyal to the Roy- 
alist cause even after the death of Charles I. 
The Parliament sent out a large fleet in 1652 to 
subdue them, and Berkeley, the Governor, 
though he made a gallant resistance, was obliged 
to yield, and a new Governor was appointed, 
who ruled the colonists for nine years with a 
hand of iron, punishing them in every way for 
their loyalty to the King. 

In 1660, after the death of Cromwell, when 
the Royalists were victorious, and Charles II 
ascended the throne of England, Berkeley was 
once more made Governor, and the Virgini- 
ans looked for better times; but forgetting 
their loyalty to him in his exile, Charles laid 
heavy taxes upon them, and even divided 
some of their land among his favorites. This, 
of course, caused much discontent, which was 
further increased by the bad government of 
Berkeley, who, though a brave and loyal man, 
cared nothing for the well-being of the colony, 
and did not try to keep the Indians in check, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 23 

SO that they robbed the houses and fields of the 
colonists at will. At last the Virginians resolved 
to take matters into their own hands, and under 
the leadership of a young Burgess called Nicho- 
las Bacon, they gathered round Berkeley's house, 
and insisted that they should be allowed to go 
and put down the Indians. Berkeley very un- 
willingly consented, but directly Bacon and his 
party had left the town he proclaimed them all 
rebels. When this news reached Bacon he 
quickly returned, full of wrath, to Jamestown ; 
Berkeley fled, and left him in possession of the 
town. But many of the Virginians rallied round 
Berkeley, and a civil war followed, during which 
Jamestown was burnt to the ground, and its 
fruitful fields laid waste. Charles had to send 
troops from England to help Berkeley, but mean- 
time Bacon died suddenly and the people quietly 
laid down their arms. Berkeley now became 
Governor for the third time, and the first use he 
made of his power was to punish all those who 
had taken part in the rebeUion, with such sever- 
ity and cruelty, that even Charles was angry, 
and recalled him to England, where he spent 
the rest of his days in retirement. After he had 



24 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

gone many things began to improve in Virginia ; 
hitherto, though the oldest of the colonies, she 
had been behind the others in learning and 
knowledge of all kinds ; this was chiefly due to 
Berkeley, who, it is said, thanked God that 
there were no free schools nor printing presses 
in the colony. In 1692 the William and Mary 
College was founded for the teaching of those 
who wanted to become ministers. It was named 
after the King and Queen of England, who gave 
the colonists 20,000 acres of land on which to 
build it. Schools too were opened, printing 
offices were set up, and Virginia took her place 
as one of the chief of the colonies. 



CHAPTER II 

We must now go back to the days of James 
I, and tell the story of the planting of Massa- 
chusetts. 

In 1606 the Plymouth Company sent out two 
ships to explore the lands in North America 
granted them by the King ; one of these ships 
was seized by the Spaniards, but the other came 
back in safety, bringing a good report of the 
country. Thereupon the Company sent out 
forty-five men to begin a colony ; but the hard- 
ships they met with discouraged them, and they 
returned to England at the first opportunity, 
with such a piteous tale of the troubles they 
had endured that the idea of planting a colony 
was given up. 

In 1614, John Smith, the hero of Virginia, 
went north with an exploring party, and on his 
return he sent a map of his discoveries, with a 
glowing account of the places he had visited, to 
Prince Charles, who was much pleased, and 
25 



26 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

named the country New England. Smith tried 
to plant a colony, but troubles recalled him to 
Virginia, and for six years the Indians and wild 
beasts who lived there were left in peace. 

Towards the end of the reign of James I there 
were in England a number of people called Puri- 
tans, who were very strict and simple in their 
ideas, and did not at all hold with the gay pleas- 
ure-loving ways of the time ; and as they were 
not allowed to keep to themselves, and worship 
God in the way they thought right, they deter- 
mined to leave their homes in England, and seek 
a refuge in the New World. Nineteen families 
accordingly set sail in a ship called the '' May- 
flower," and after a long and stormy passage, 
they landed in .New England, on a bare and 
desolate coast, bordered with gloomy forests. 
It was the middle of the winter and the cold 
was terrible, far worse than they had ever known 
it in England ; but they set to work at once in 
grim earnest; each family built itself a log- 
house, and this little collection of dwellings they 
called New Plymouth. A few Indians appeared 
when they landed, but ran off frightened at the 
sight of the strangers, and it was not till some 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 27 

time after that one of the chiefs ventured up to 
the settlement, attracted by the music of their 
drum and fife band, and made friends with 
them. Every day the cold grew more bitter, 
and to add to their sufferings their provisions 
were soon finished, and they had to live on 
clams, mussels and other shell-fish, and nuts and 
acorns instead of bread. Many of the colonists 
belonged to rich and noble families, and had 
given up everything, homes, riches and friends, 
and come out into this unknown country, ready 
to face any hardships for the sake of their re- 
ligion. One of these was the young and lovely 
Lady Arabella Johnson, who, as an old chron- 
icler tells us, "came from a Paradise of plenty 
into a wilderness of wants, and although cele- 
brated for her many virtues, she was not able to 
encounter the adversity she was surrounded with, 
and about a month after her arrival she ended 
her days. ' ' Her husband died of grief soon after, 
and before the spring came half the little colony 
had perished. But the faith which had brought 
them there never wavered ; and at length as the 
warm weather came on their prospects began to 
brighten ; other colonists came out, and after a 



28 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

time their number was increased to three hun- 
dred. In 1623 the colony of New Hampshire 
was planted, in 1628 that of Massachusetts Bay, 
and in 1630 fifteen hundred emigrants came 
over and founded Boston and other towns. But 
although they were now fairly prosperous, the 
colonists continued to live in the same simple 
way as at first, looking upon any sort of finery 
or luxury as a snare of the devil, and strictly 
keeping the rules of their religion ; they tried to 
keep out all evil-doers by making a law, that no 
one, who was not a member of their church, the 
Congregational, should be allowed to have any 
voice in the affairs of the colony. Thus they 
lived, simply and peacefully, until the coming of 
a young Puritan preacher named Roger Wil- 
liams. With fiery earnestness he spoke against 
their narrow views, and loudly demanded free- 
dom of thought for all. The colonists were 
very angry; few took his part, and he was 
turned out of the settlement in the depths of a 
terrible New England winter, to wander through 
the snow-buried forests he knew not whither. 
He would have died had not some friendly 
Indians sheltered him ; and in the spring they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 29 

gave him some land, on which he began to build 
the town called Providence, (because he believed 
it was God's Providence that saved him), and a 
few followers having joined him, the settlement 
of Rhode Island was founded. 

In 1635, among other emigrants who came 
out to Massachusetts, was a clever, high-minded 
young man named Sir Henry Vane, whose gravity 
and goodness endeared him to the colonists, and 
they made him Governor before he had been 
there a year. But the peace of the colony was 
not to last; Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a very 
learned woman for that time, earnest and bold, 
was the next disturber ; she held meetings for 
women, at which she spoke very strongly against 
the narrow religion of the colonists in much the 
same way that Williams had done. Vane upheld 
everything she said, but none of the church 
rulers would listen to her. She was publicly 
condemned in church meeting, and obliged to 
take refuge in Rhode Island ; but, unfortunately 
choosing to live on the outskirts of that colony, 
some unfriendly Indians burnt her house to the 
ground, and she and her children perished in 
the flames. Vane, meantime, had gone back to 



30 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

England in disgust, after he was defeated and 
Winthrop made governor. 

Soon after the colony was again disturbed by 
people who wanted to worship God in a different 
way ; this time it was by some Quakers, who 
came over from England ; they were well-mean- 
ing, sincerely good people, but, as they loudly 
declared that they were right, and every one else 
was wrong, they were much disliked by the 
colonists, so much so indeed, that a law was 
passed banishing them on pain of death, and as 
two or three of ^em persisted in remaining, 
they were executed without mercy. 

Besides these religious trials, the colonists 
were troubled by unbelievers. One Thomas 
Morton, teaching that life was meant for pleas- 
ure, gathered a little band around him at a 
place called the "Merry Mount," about five 
miles from Boston, and there they spent their 
days singing, drinking and dancing round a 
huge May-pole. The strict members of the 
colony were greatly shocked at these doings, 
and reproved Morton, but without effect, and 
when they found that, in his eagerness to do a 
good beaver trade with the Indians, he had 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 31 

taught them to shoot, and given them firearms 
and shot, they turned the mischief-maker out of 
the colony, and he had to spend the rest of his 
life drearily in England. 

The colony was rapidly growing larger, and 
new settlements were planted ; one in the beau- 
tiful valley of the Connecticut, another called 
Maine, and a third New Haven ; and the people 
began to long for a college, as they greatly 
dreaded the idea of having ignorant ministers, 
when those who were now with them were dead 
and gone. While they were wondering what 
could be done, the Rev. John Harvard came 
forward, and offered to give half his estate, 
amounting to jQij'joo, and all his library, and 
thus founded Harvard College. It was warmly 
supported by the people; each family in the 
colony giving either a peck of corn or a shilling 
in money. The name of the town, near which 
it was built, was changed to Cambridge, after 
the college of that name in England. The first 
printing press in America was set up in this 
town ; the first book printed there was the " Bay 
Psalm Book," and the first newspaper, the 
Boston News- Letter was issued in 1 704. 



32 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Another trouble of the colonists was the In- 
dians, many of whom were far from friendly. 
Near Rhode Island and Connecticut lived two 
of the chief tribes, the Pequods and the Narra- 
gansetts ; they were at enmity with each other, 
and, as the Pequods hated the whites, the Nar- 
ragansetts took their part, and told them that the 
Pequods were plotting against them. The 
colonists, in alarm, got together as large a force 
as they could, consisting of eighty whites and 
three hundred friendly Indians, and these under 
the command of Captain Mason sailed down 
the Connecticut, intending to make a sudden at- 
tack on one of the chief Indian forts near Say- 
thorpe. They reached the fort at daybreak, 
and silently surrounded it, while the enemy 
slept, when suddenly a dog barked, and in a mo- 
ment every one in the fort was on the alert. A 
fierce fight followed, and the Indians, who were 
many more in number than the whites, were get- 
ting the upper hand, when Mason set fire to the 
fort. This turned the tide of battle. The 
flames quickly spread, and wigwam after wig- 
wam was soon in ashes ; seven hundred Indians 
perished in the flames, and the rest fled wildly, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 33 

hotly pursued by the whites, who overtook them 
at a swamp, and made them prisoners. After 
this great defeat the Indians were quiet for some 
years. 

The quarrel between Charles I and his Parlia- 
ment having now ended in open war, the New 
England colonies sided with the latter, several 
went to England to help the Parliamentarians, 
and, as a reward, when the Parliament tri- 
umphed, all their taxes were taken off. But 
this happy state of affairs only lasted a few 
years, and when Charles II ascended the throne, 
the colonists knew that they could expect no 
more favors ; but they cared so little for him, 
that when two of the judges who had sentenced 
Charles I to death, fled to New England for ref- 
uge, they were allowed to remain there in hid- 
ing for the rest of their lives. To punish the 
colonists Charles II laid heavy taxes upon them, 
and would not allow them to trade with any 
country except England, which greatly reduced 
their profits ; and he made them still more bit- 
ter against him by sending over four Commis- 
sioners to put the affairs of the colony in order. 
But as the colonists paid no attention to any- 



34 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

thing the Commissioners said they had to return 
home, having done nothing but widen the 
breach between New England and the mother 
country. 

Fifty years after the arrival of the "Pilgrim 
Fathers," as the founders of the colony were 
called, there were a hundred and fifty towns in 
Massachusetts, and a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand inhabitants. Year by year they had culti- 
vated more and more land, cutting down the 
forests and draining the swamps, till the Indians 
began to find their hunting grounds were being 
taken away from them, and their favorite haunts 
invaded, and the hatred of the whites, that had 
been slumbering in their hearts since their great 
defeat, began to burn hotly. There was now 
living in Rhode Island an Indian chief, whom 
the New Englanders called King Phillip ; he 
was a very clever and brave man, with a proud, 
untamable spirit, and he determined to free his 
country. He visited all the chiefs far and near, 
and persuaded them to join him, telling them, 
that if they did not make a stand, in a few years 
the beautiful lands which had always belonged 
to their race, would no longer be theirs; the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 35 

forests would be cut down and the hunting 
grounds destroyed, and they would become the 
slaves of the hated whites ; and before long he 
found himself at the head of four thousand men. 
The storm burst in June, 1675. The people of 
Swansey in Plymouth were returning quietly and 
happily home from church, when they were 
suddenly surrounded by the Indians, and many of 
them were killed. One man managed to escape, 
and rang the town alarm bell, and, as the colonists 
from all parts flocked in to help the inhabitants, 
the Indians fled, setting fire to the farmhouses 
as they went, and leaving on poles by the way- 
side the scalps of the whites they had killed. 
Phillip, expecting an attack, fled to a swamp in 
Pocasset; the colonists followed him thither, 
meaning to surround the swamp, and starve him 
out, but he guessed their design, and stole away 
under cover of night. 

There now began a terrible time for the colo- 
nists. As the settlements were only clearings in 
the midst of forests and swamps, the Indians, 
lying in ambush among the trees, could watch 
them unseen, and fall upon them at unguarded 
moments. Never could the colonists feel secure, 



36 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

and never could they tell from what quarter 
death would come. Men, women and children 
alike were killed ; they were shot dead as they 
opened their doors in the morning, and while 
they were working in the fields, and even on 
their way to church. Villages were attacked in 
the night ; the houses burnt to the ground, and 
the people killed or taken away captive. Day 
by day their number grew less and less, until it 
seemed as if soon there would be none of them 
left. At last they resolved to make a desperate 
effort, and gathering together every man able to 
bear arms, they set off to attack one of the chief 
Indian forts. A solemn fast with prayer and 
psalm was held by all the anxious ones left be- 
hind, to call down a blessing on the undertaking, 
and on the i8th of December the little band set 
out, wading through the deep snow that covered 
the land. Early next day they reached and 
surrounded the enemy's fort, which was on a 
small hill in the middle of a swamp, and de- 
fended by a thick fence of brushwood. Here 
the New Englanders fought the fiercest battle 
that had yet been known in the colony ; they 
felt it was their last chance, and they fought as 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 37 

only desperate men can, for three hours, and at 
the end of that time they were victors ; indeed 
hardly an Indian was left. It was a heavy blow 
to the Indians, but Phillip remained unconquered, 
and though he had lost his wife and family and 
all his best men he would not give in. The 
colonists hunted him from swamp to swamp, till 
at last he met his death at the hands of one of 
his own men. When he was dead the Indians 
laid down their arms and begged for peace, 
which was gladly granted by the colonists, to 
whom it was most welcome, for the war 
had lasted three years and had cost them 
many hundreds of lives and many a town and 
village. 

New England, however, was not long to enjoy 
this peace ; troubles of another kind were in 
store for her. Many of the laws that had been 
made for the colonists in the beginning by the 
English Parliament had been put on one side as 
unsuitable, and the King now determined to 
punish the colonists for this by taking away their 
charters. These charters, or rights, had been 
granted to each of the colonies when they were 
first settled, and were greatly valued by them. 



38 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

In 1685 the King sent over Sir Edmund Andros 
as Governor, and told him to take away the 
charters of all the colonies except Plymouth; 
but the people of Connecticut hid their charter 
away in an oak tree, and the new Governor 
never found it. He was a harsh and tyrannical 
man, and made himself hated by every one ; 
many were the unjust and hard laws he made, 
and many were the taxes he laid upon the people. 
This went on till news came to the colony that 
James II had been forced to leave the throne, 
and William III had taken his place, and on 
hearing this, the New Englanders rose up, and 
seized Sir Edmund and fifty of his friends, and 
sent them to England for trial. 

There now being war between England and 
France, the French, who had settled in Canada, 
thought this would be a good opportunity to 
invade New England, and aided by the Indians, 
they attacked the settlement, burning the houses, 
murdering the people in their beds at midnight, 
and carrying them off into captivity. The suffer- 
ing of the colonists was very great, and the only 
way of ending it, so it seemed to them, was to 
seize Canada. To do this they raised an army 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 39 

which, commanded by General Winthrop, 
marched towards Montreal, while a fleet under 
Sir Henry Phipps was sent to storm Quebec. 
But both attempts were failures and the scheme 
was given up. This war was called ''King 
William's War." 

William III now turned his attention to the 
colonies, and granted a new charter to Massa- 
chusetts, allowing the people to elect their own 
Burgesses ; and he appointed, as Governor, Sir 
William Phipps, who was well known and hked 
in the colony. Phipps came to Boston in 1692, 
and one of his first acts was to hold a court to 
try some unfortunate people who were accused 
of witchcraft. In the old days in England, peo- 
ple were sometimes supposed to be the servants 
of the Evil One, and were severely punished, but 
now in New England there was a regular scare. 
It began in a strange way. The two children 
of the minister at Salem had an illness which 
made them twist their bodies about as if in great 
pain, and the doctors, not knowing what was 
the matter, declared that the children were be- 
witched. An old Indian servant was accused, 
and frightened into saying she was guilty. The 



40 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

story spread like wildfire, and soon other children 
said that they too were bewitched by some old 
women in the neighborhood ; who, they im- 
agined, came into their rooms through the key- 
holes, and pinched and pricked them. The 
scare spread, people began to be afraid of going 
out in the dark, or down lonely roads, for fear 
of spirits, and even the Magistrates themselves 
believed that the Evil One was let loose in their 
midst. All sorts of harmless and innocent peo- 
ple were accused, and sent to prison. At the 
first sitting of Phipps' Court nineteen people 
were sentenced to be hanged, and a hundred 
and fifty were imprisoned ; and so it went on, 
getting worse and worse, till one day the Gov- 
ernor's wife was accused. This was a shock, 
and people stopped to think ; it seemed that not 
even the highest in the land were safe from sus- 
picion; they began to be ashamed of their 
fright, and to go more closely into matters. At 
the next trial, the fifty who were tried were 
found innocent, and the Governor ordered that 
all those who were still in prison should be set 
free ; and thus the scare ended. 

A few years now went peacefully by, till war 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 41 

broke out again between England and France, 
and as before, the French in Canada took it up. 
It was called " Queen Anne's War," as it hap- 
pened in the reign of that Queen. The first 
outbreak was at the town of Deerfield, which 
was surprised in the night by a party of French 
and Indians. The townsfolk were peacefully 
sleeping, without a thought of danger, when the 
harsh war-whoop of the savages sounded through 
the night, and starting up, the people found 
their town on fire. Many were killed, and a 
hundred men, women and children were taken 
prisoners and compelled, half-clothed as they 
were, to start on foot through the snow for the 
long march to Canada. Among the prisoners 
was a clergyman named Mr. Williams, and his 
wife. On the second day of the march, Mrs. 
WiUiams's strength gave way ; she sank fainting 
to the ground, unable to go any further. Her 
husband begged to be allowed to remain behind 
with her, but their captors had no mercy, and 
before her husband's very eyes they killed the 
poor woman, and, not even allowing him to 
bury her, they made him go forward with the 
rest, leaving her lying dead on the snow. The 



42 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

line of march was marked by the bodies of those 
who met with the same fate, twenty-six in all. 
The few who lived to reach Canada were kept 
prisoners till they were ransomed by their 
friends, and it was not till two years after that 
Mr. Williams once more saw his home. Hor- 
rible, indeed, were many of the doings of the 
French and Indians in these wars. The French, 
eager for conquest and booty, let their savage 
allies do very much as they liked ; and the 
cruel, crafty Indians, who would never attack a 
fortified town, or a body of armed men, waged 
war on the unprepared and the helpless, burn- 
ing and plundering their houses, and torturing 
and murdering women and children. The 
sound of their savage war-whoop was a terror 
in the land. At last the colonists, driven to 
desperation, collected all the men they could, 
and sent them to attack Port Royal, one of the 
chief French forts in Canada ; but they met 
with no success. In 1710 they sent out a sec- 
ond expedition, and this time took the fort, and 
in honor of Queen Anne, changed its name to 
Annapolis. Encouraged by this success, the 
New Englanders, with help from England, sent 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 43 

out a third and much larger force against 
Canada ; part of which went by sea under Ad- 
miral Walker, and part by land under General 
Nicholson. When Walker's fleet was half-way 
up the River St. Lawrence a thick fog came on, 
and they could not see where they were going. 
At midnight a loud cry was heard, and several 
of the foremost ships struck on a rock, and were 
dashed to pieces. Cries for help resounded 
through the darkness, and when morning 
dawned men were picked up on all sides from 
the floating wrecks, but more than a thousand 
had already perished. The admiral, crushed by 
this terrible misfortune, gave up the expedition 
and went back to England. When the sad 
news reached the troops who had gone by land, 
they returned home without striking a blow. In 
1 7 13 England and France made a treaty at 
Utrecht, and for a time there was peace in the 
colony. 

In 1744 a third war, called "King George's 
War," having broken out between England and 
France, several French privateers were sent out 
from Louisburg to capture the trading and fish- 
ing ships of the New Englanders. One of the 



44 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

traders who lost several ships in this way, sug- 
gested the idea of taking Louisburg to the Gov- 
ernor, who laid it before the House of Burgesses ; 
but most of them looked upon it as quite impos- 
sible. Louisburg was one of the strongest po- 
sitions that the French held in Canada, and, 
shut in as it was by rocks and cliffs, they said it 
would be madness to attempt it. No one out- 
side the House was allowed to hear a word 
about the suggestion, but it came out at last by 
one of the Burgesses asking God's blessing on it 
in his family prayers. The news instantly spread, 
and the people, eager to get possession of such 
an important place, got up a petition signed by 
a large number of merchants, begging the Gov- 
ernor to undertake it. At last it was decided 
that an attempt should be made, and an army 
of four thousand men secretly embarked on 
a small fleet. Several war-ships which were 
already cruising round Louisburg had cap- 
tured a number of French vessels, and thus 
prevented news of the expedition from reaching 
the enemy, till the fleet itself appeared. The 
troops landed, and next day one of the regi- 
ments marched round the hills, and came within 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 45 

a mile of the chief fort ; and as they set fire to 
every building they passed a thick smoke veiled 
them from the French, who, not being able to 
see how many there were, imagined that the 
whole army was coming against them, and 
throwing their powder into a well, deserted the 
fort, into which the New Englanders instantly 
trooped. This was a stroke of luck, but much 
had yet to be done. The New Englanders had 
to drag their cannon for two miles over a swamp 
within gunshot of the enemy ; for fourteen nights 
the troops with straps over their shoulders, and 
sinking to their knees in mud, were hard at 
work ; but at last it was done, and their cannon 
were placed all round the fort. Meantime the 
fleet in the harbor had captured a French ship 
loaded with provisions for the garrison, and 
other ships having joined them, a combined 
attack by land and sea was planned. But there 
was no fighting ; the French, frightened at the 
force they saw arrayed against them, surrendered 
without striking a blow, and the New England- 
ers took possession of the place. There was 
great rejoicing throughout the colony at this 
wonderful victory, particularly on the part of 



46 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the merchants, who could now trade in safety. 
Peace was concluded between France and Eng- 
land in 1748, and thus ended ''King George's 
War." 



CHAPTER III 

Once more we must go right back to the 
days of King James I, to tell of the planting of 
New York and Delaware. 

The first man to land in the part of North 
America we now call New York, was Martin 
Frobisher, an English merchant captain, who 
was searching for a northwest passage to the 
East Indies. But no one followed him, and 
years passed by before the country was again 
visited. 

The next explorer was Henry Hudson, an- 
other English captain, who was sent by the 
Dutch on a voyage of discovery in 1609, and 
who sailed up the river which now bears his 
name. The Dutch followed him in 161 3, and 
founded a city which they called New Amster- 
dam. There they lived, and increased in num- 
ber for several years, quietly taking possession 
of a great deal of land on both sides of the 
Hudson, and calling the country the New 
Netherlands. 

47 



48 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

In 1627 the planting of Delaware was begun 
by some Swedes and Finns, who bought from 
the Indians the land on both sides of the river 
from the sea to the Falls, calling it New Sweden. 
It was a lovely bit of country, covered with 
green trees and grassy slopes, with the river 
winding through it, and wild deer feeding on 
the banks, and they would have lived there 
happily and peacefully had it not been for the 
Dutch, who claimed the country, and kept try- 
ing to take it from them. The Swedes built 
three forts to protect themselves, but the Dutch 
built one at Newcastle, right in New Sweden. 
The Swedes were not strong enough to turn 
them out, and their Governor determined to use 
treachery. He pretended that he wanted to 
make a friendly visit to the Dutch commander, 
and went to see him, taking thirty men. He 
was received very kindly, and feasted and made 
much of, but when the Dutch were off their 
guard, he seized the fort, and made prisoners of 
the garrison. This made the Dutch Governor 
of New York very angry, and hastily assembling 
his men, he fiercely attacked the Swedes, and 
took their colony away from them; and it 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 49 

remained in the hands of the Dutch till 1664, 
when with New York, it passed into the hands 
of the English. 

In 1624 the Danes made a settlement at New 
Jersey, but they met with the same fate as the 
Swedes, and their land was added to the New 
Netherlands. 

The Dutch settlers, being much troubled by 
the Indians, asked the help of Colonel Under- 
hill of New Hampshire, and he, with a party of 
men, won a great victory over the savages at the 
Battle of Horseneck, in which many were slain 
on both sides, and buried under a great mound 
on Strickland's plain. 

The English were quite friendly with the 
Dutch up to the year 1664, when Charles II sud- 
denly laid claim to the whole of the New Neth- 
erlands, and made a present of it to his brother, 
the Duke of York, who sent out some ships and 
men to take possession. The commander of the 
expedition called upon the Dutch Governor to 
surrender, promising that if he did so the people 
should be allowed to return to their own country, 
taking their property with them. The Gov- 
ernor unwillingly consented, and the English 



50 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

entering New Amsterdam, changed its name to 
New York, in honor of the Duke. In 1673, 
England and Holland being at war, a few Dutch 
ships were sent out to reconquer the country ; 
but on their arrival near the city the English 
Governor treacherously made terms with them, 
and the Dutch, sailing up the harbor, landed 
their men and took the town without a shot be- 
ing fired on either side. The next year, how- 
ever, peace was proclaimed, and the town given 
back to the English. The Duke appointed good 
Governors, and allowed the colonists to choose 
their own Burgesses, and make their own laws, 
and levy their own taxes, and the people were 
contented and happy. Meantime the Duke 
became James II, but he had not been King 
long, before the English, who hated him, took 
away his crown, and offered it to William of 
Orange. When news of this reached the col- 
ony, a captain, called Jacob Leisler, quietly took 
possession of the fort, and declared William of 
Orange King ; he had few followers at first, but 
when he falsely reported that William's ships 
were sailing up the harbor, others joined him, 
and the Governor left the town in the night. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 51 

Leisler proclaimed himself Governor, but many 
of the colonists, though they acknowledged 
William as King, refused to obey Leisler, as he 
had no authority from England. 

"King William's War" had now broken out, 
and New York suffered in the same way as Mas- 
sachusetts, from the cruelty of the French and 
Indians. Schenectady was one of the places at- 
tacked. The townsfolk were warned of the 
coming danger, but they laughed at the idea of 
it, and made no preparations, thinking it impos- 
sible that an army would march all the way from 
Canada in the snow ; but one night the French, 
and their allies the Indians, arrived at the town, 
and silently entering it crept along the streets, 
and surrounded the houses. The place was 
quite still, when suddenly from every quarter 
the terrible Indian war-whoop was heard ; the 
people sprang from their beds, and met the sav- 
ages on the threshold of their homes ; in a few 
minutes every house was on fire, women were 
butchered, and children thrown into the flames, 
and the Indians, mad with the thirst for blood, 
rushed through the streets, murdering every one 
they could find ; a few got away and started, 



52 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

half clothed as they were, for Albany, many 
miles off, but only one or two lived to tell the 
tale of that midnight walk through the snow. 
To avenge this, and many other cruel deeds, the 
people of New York determined to attack Can- 
ada ; they, like the people of Massachusetts, felt 
it was the only way to rid themselves of their 
enemies. With much difficulty a small army 
was collected, and sent to Lake Champlain ; but, 
owing to the carelessness of Leisler, there were 
no boats to take them across, and they were 
obliged to return home. 

William, who was now firmly seated on the 
throne of England, appointed Sloughter Gov- 
ernor of New York, but Leisler did not want to 
give up the position he had taken, and sent two 
messengers to treat with the new Governor, who 
at once imprisoned them. This frightened 
Leisler, and he tried to escape, but he was 
caught and after a short trial was condemned to 
death, though Sloughter would not sign the war- 
rant for his execution. Leisler's enemies, how- 
ever, who were many, determined he should die. 
They made a great feast to which they invited 
the Governor, and when his senses were confused 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 53 

with wine, they persuaded him to sign the war- 
rant, and before he knew what he had done the 
prisoner was dead. 

In 1697 the Earl of Bellamont was made 
Governor; he had special orders to clear the 
American seas of the pirates, who were now a 
terror to all honest traders. This was chiefly 
owing to the Spaniards, who considered them- 
selves the masters of the New World, and tried 
to keep the whole trade of America in their own 
hands in any way they could. But the other na- 
tions who had colonized America grew angry, 
and private traders, both French and English, 
used to send out ships, called privateers, to cap- 
ture any Spanish ships they could find, and after 
a time, finding it very profitable, they seized not 
only Spanish ships, but any others they came 
across, even those of their own nation. There 
were now hundreds of these privateers, and very 
bold and desperate were their captains ; not a 
merchant felt safe, for many a crew had they 
murdered, and many a vessel had they robbed 
and sunk. The Earl prepared a ship to send 
against them, and gave the command of it to a 
man called Captain Kidd, who, however, when he 



54 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

had got out to sea, thought he would like to be 
a pirate hii];iself, and suggested it to his men 
who willingly agreed to follow him, and he soon 
became the most daring and desperate of all the 
pirates, attacking every vessel he met, and car- 
rying off all the treasure he could find on board. 
At the end of three years he grew tired of the 
life, and, dismissing his crew, and burning his 
ship, he went to Boston, where he was at once 
recognized, and seized and taken to England to 
be hanged. After his death many adventurers 
went forth to try and discover the hiding-place 
of his treasure, which was supposed to be 
buried away in some secret island cave, but 
search as they would no one was fortunate 
enough to find it. 

In 1 710, three thousand Germans came over 
to America, and settled in New York and Penn- 
sylvania ; they sent back to Germany such a good 
report of the country, that many followed their 
lead and made their home in the New World ; 
and to this day their descendants are among the 
most industrious, honest and respectable people 
in our land. 

In 1719 the Governor of New York became 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 55 

aware that the French were quietly making a 
chain of forts from the St. Lawrence to the Mis- 
sissippi, in order to connect their settlements in 
Canada and Louisiana and to keep to themselves 
the Indian trade. He tried to defeat their plans 
by building a fort at Oswego on Lake Ontario, 
but the French, not to be outdone, built one at 
Niagara commanding the entrance, and another 
at Frontenac commanding the outlet to the 
Lake. In 1731 they built a fort at Crown Point, 
which was actually in the New York settlement, 
and from this fort they sent out little bands of 
savages to worry the English ; and a great deal 
of harm the savages did, destroying Saratoga, 
turning the people out of Hosick, and even 
venturing close to Albany. Once more the col- 
ony assembled its forces and getting a promise 
of help from England, prepared an expedition 
against Canada, but meantime, peace being 
made between England and France, the matter 
ended for the time. 



CHAPTER IV 

And now for the third and last time we must 
go back to the days of James I to tell about the 
planting of Maryland. 

The Roman Catholics were much disliked in 
England in the reign of this King, and one of 
them, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a native 
of Yorkshire, decided to leave the country and 
find peace in the New World. He had been 
Secretary of State, but was compelled to resign 
in 1624, when he became a Roman Catholic. 
He was one of the King's most trusted ad- 
visers, and had been shortly before raised to 
the peerage. His title came from the very an- 
cient town of Baltimore on the southern coast 
of Ireland, a famous trading post in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth, and for centuries before 
that — though now an insignificant hamlet. The 
native chieftain of Baltimore had joined the 
Spaniards when they invaded Ireland, landing 
at Kinsale, very near to Baltimore, in 1601, his 
56 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 57 

lands had been confiscated, and Baltimore had 
been colonized by English settlers, many of whom 
emigrated to Maryland with the Calverts. He 
went first to Virginia, and then to Chesapeake 
Bay, where he made up his mind that he would 
plant a colony, as a refuge for all those who were 
unhappy at home. He explored the country very 
carefully, and on returning to England, obtained 
a charter from Charles I, but he died before he 
had time to work out his scheme. His son 
Cecil, now Lord Baltimore, desirous of carrying 
out his dead father's wishes, in 1634, sent his 
brother, Leonard Calvert, with two hundred 
Catholics to Chesapeake Bay. They landed in 
the early spring of 1634 at the mouth of the 
river Potomac, and there they found a village 
lying amid fields and orchards, which had been 
planted by some of the more civilized Indians. 
This village they bought just as it was, and be- 
gan life in the new country in the happiest way, 
with houses ready to live in, fields with the corn 
already coming up, and fruit-trees laden with 
blossoms. There were wild deer in the woods, 
fish in the bay and myriads of sea-fowl, wild ducks 
and geese; and so Maryland, as they named 



58 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

it, (in honor of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles 
I) flourished, and the settlers had none of the 
trials and difficulties which the other colonists 
had met with. The early colonists to Maryland 
were mostly of ancient families ; what is known 
in England as ''Gentry." It was a peaceful 
colony too ; there were no quarrels about religion 
as there were in Massachusetts ; every one was 
free to worship God in his own way. Of course 
they had some troubles. There was a man named 
Claybourne, a Puritan, who would not obey Cal- 
vert, and not being able to get any of the whites 
to join him, he went to the Indians and told 
them that the colonists hated them, and meant 
to root them out of the land, and he succeeded 
so well in his mischief- making that an Indian 
war broke out, and lasted several years, to the 
great distress of the colony. He was imprisoned, 
but escaped, and in the time of the civil war be- 
tween Charles I and his Parhament, he did suc- 
ceed in getting some of the colonists to rebel 
against Calvert, who was a Royalist, and com- 
pelled him to fly to Virginia ; and though the 
rebels were put down for the time, Claybourne 
triumphed again when the Parliament beheaded 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 59 

King Charles. He then was made one of a 
number of Commissioners who were appointed to 
govern Maryland. These Commissioners were 
mostly Puritans, and they had no mercy on the 
Roman Catholics in the colony, but treated them 
so badly, that they rose in revolt, and a civil war 
followed which ended in the defeat of the Ro- 
man Catholic party. The first act of the vic- 
torious Puritans was to declare that no Roman 
Catholics were to be protected by the laws of the 
colony, and this led to much trouble in the col- 
ony, and not till 1660 when Charles II as- 
cended the throne, and Calvert was once more 
made Governor, did the old peaceful times 
come back. In 1676 Lord Baltimore, the 
father of Maryland, died. For more than 
forty years he had done his best for the col- 
ony, arranging its affairs wisely and well and 
in its early records he is mentioned again and 
again with great respect and affection. His 
son Charles was a worthy successor to his 
father; and all went well till 1689, when some 
idle, discontented people spread a report that the 
Roman Catholics were plotting with the Indians 
to destroy all the Protestants in the colony. 



6o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATFS 

The Protestants unfortunately believed this, and 
arming themselves, they turned out the Gover- 
nor, and seized the chief town. William, now 
King of England, thought this a good time to 
interfere, and, denying Lord Baltimore's right 
to the colony, took the government of it into 
his own hands, and not till 1716 was it given 
back to the real owner, in whose possession it 
remained until the Revolution. The beautiful 
and prosperous city of Baltimore was not 
founded till 1729. It is a splendid namesake 
to the tiny port on the Irish coast, which was 
nearly wiped out of existence on the night of 
June 20th, 1 63 1, when two galleys manned 
with Algerine pirates sailed in, sacked the de- 
fenseless town, murdered most of the inhabit- 
ants and took others into a captivity worse than 
death. But a comparative few escaped, and 
some of these were among the early colonists 
who went to Maryland three or four years 
later. 

It may interest some young readers to know 
that the name Baltimore, which sounds so 
American to-day, is said to come from the com- 
pound Irish words Beale-antigmor ; Beaky car 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 6i 

Bally, town, an-tig, the house, mor, great; 
literally, Town-of-the-great-house. Long be- 
fore the dawn of Christianity this spot was a 
sanctuary of the Druid priests, who worshiped 
the god Baal, of whom the Bible speaks so 
much. The remains of a Druidical altar or 
cromlech, circle, holy-well and all, may be 
seen there yet. 

The place never recovered from the shock of 
the Algerian raid ; its trade vanished. It was 
incorporated as a borough by King James I and 
sent two representatives to parliament, but after 
the extinction of the title of Lord Baltimore it 
lost its franchise — about 1800. Sold under the 
encumbered estates acts it became the property 
of an Englishman named Freke, ancestor of the 
present Lord Carbery — newcomers to that an- 
cient name and title. 

Now comes the story of Pennsylvania ; it was 
begun in this way ; there was in England a very 
good man named William Penn, whose father 
had been an admiral in the British navy, and 
had done a great deal for the King, without 
having any reward. William was a grave and 
good young man, and when he was little more 



62 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

than a boy he joined the Quakers, attracted by 
their simple pious ways and their love of man- 
kind ; they were quieter and humbler now than 
in the early days of Massachusetts, and even 
more sincere and anxious to do right. When 
he was still quite a young man, Penn was sent 
out to see after the affairs of New Jersey, and 
while he was there he found out that there was a 
large piece of land, where no one had settled, 
between New York and Maryland, and when he 
asked King Charles if he might have this land, 
it was given to him as a reward for his father's 
services, and called Pennsylvania. His idea 
was to plant a settlement for his Quaker friends, 
where they could live in freedom and peace, and 
with his help some of them went out and began 
a colony. They took with them a letter to the 
Indians in which Penn wrote *' that the Great 
Lord had pleased to make him concerned in this 
part of the world, and that the King of the 
country where he lived had given him a great 
province therein, but that he did not desire to 
enjoy it without their consent ; that he was a 
man of peace and that the people whom he sent 
were of the same disposition, and if any differ- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 63 

ence should happen between them, it might be 
adjusted by an equal number of men chosen on 
both sides." The Duke of York, afterwards 
James II, soon after gave him a part of Dela- 
ware, and in August he set sail for his new 
possession with two thousand more Quakers. 
They landed in Delaware, and the very first 
thing Penn did was to make friends with the 
Indians and very soon won them over by his 
gentle and courteous manners. He went to 
visit some of the chiefs, and was careful to do 
exactly as they did, and to eat the food they set 
before him as if he liked it. To amuse him 
after he had feasted with them, they showed him 
how they could jump and leap, and Penn got up 
and jumped too and beat them all. He made a 
treaty with them then and there, and they al- 
lowed him to purchase from them all the land he 
wanted for his new colony, and for long years 
afterwards they were his faithful friends. He 
chose a good site and marked out the plan of a 
large city which he called Philadelphia, the 
City of Brotherly Love, and before the end of 
the year there were eighty houses in it. Penn 
arranged the government of the colony in a 



64 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

just and liberal way, allowing every one perfect 
freedom of thought. " I desire," he said, '' to 
show men as free and happy as they can be." 
His chief rules were " that to prevent lawsuits 
three peacemakers should be chosen by the 
county courts to hear and determine small 
differences between man and man; that chil- 
dren should be taught some useful trade to the 
end that none might be idle, that the poor might 
work to live, and the rich if they should become 
poor, that everything which excites people to 
rudeness, cruelty and irreligion, should be dis- 
couraged and severely punished; that no one 
acknowledging God and living peaceably in 
society should be molested for his opinion and 
his practice or compelled to frequent or main- 
tain any ministry whatever." Reports of the 
happiness and prosperity of the new colony 
brought emigrants thither from all parts of the 
world, and four years after Penn had received 
the grant there were twenty settlements in Penn- 
sylvania, and twenty thousand inhabitants in 
Philadelphia. In 1684 Penn returned to Eng- 
land, and when James II went into exile five 
years later he was one of the very few who 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 65 

remained faithful to him. '' He has been my 
friend and my father's friend," the great Quaker 
said, **and I feel bound in justice to be a friend 
to him." This of course made the new King 
William angry, and he took Pennsylvania away 
from Penn, and four times imprisoned him on 
various vague charges, but nothing could be found 
against him, so noble and pure was his life ; and 
at last William seeing how much good he did, 
took him into favor and gave him back his 
rights. In 1699 Penn again visited Pennsyl- 
vania, but while he had been in England the 
people had become discontented and unsettled, 
and to please them he made out a new charter, 
*'to throw all into their hands, that they might 
see the confidence he had in them, and his 
desire to give them all possible contentment." 
Having thus arranged affairs to the satisfaction 
of every one Penn returned to England, where 
he spent the remainder of his life, loved and 
respected by all. His colony continued to 
flourish, and grew more rapidly than any of the 
other colonies. For seventy years the Indi- 
ans, true to their promise to Penn, lived 
at peace with the colonists, and until the 



66 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

French war nothing occurred to spoil their 
happiness. 

The first settlers in the Carolinas came from 
Virginia, and settled at Albemarle. The win- 
ters were mild, and the soil fertile, and with but 
little labor they lived in the enjoyment of abun- 
dance, with no Governor nor any laws but those 
of God and Nature. In 1663 a number of 
English courtiers of the highest rank, " excited," 
they said, " by a laudable and pious zeal for the 
propagation of the Gospel," but in reality, I 
fear, by a desire to obtain a rich and valuable 
country, begged Charles II to give them the 
land between the Atlantic and the South Sea 
which they called Carolina. This he did on 
condition that the people were to be allowed to 
choose their own Burgesses, and that every one 
was to have perfect freedom of thought. The 
settlers at Albemarle were allowed to keep their 
lands and the new owners tried to attract other 
emigrants from New England ; a few came, but 
they did not care for it, and after a time most 
of them went back. However, their place was 
soon filled up by planters from Barbadoes, who 
called their part of the colony Clarendon ; 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 67 

these planters brought with them a number of 
slaves, to work on the cotton and rice planta- 
tions, which soon made the chief wealth of the 
colony, and thus began the slave trade in the 
Carolinas. The owners meanwhile, anxious for 
the colony to be governed in the best way pos- 
sible, asked John Locke, one of the greatest 
men of the time, to make out a plan of govern- 
ment, and he drew up a very careful one ; but it 
was not at all suitable to life in the colonies, and 
caused so much discontent among the people 
that it had to be given up. In 1670 a settle- 
ment was planted at Port Royal ; the town of 
Charleston was begun, and during the next 
few years emigrants poured in from England, 
Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Germany and 
France, and the colony grew so large that it was 
divided into two parts. North Carolina and 
South Carolina. All would have gone well had 
it not been for those great troublers of all the 
colonies, the Indians, who had been secretly 
plotting for some time, and one night, having 
sent their families away for safety to a distant 
fort, twelve hundred of them surprised two 
settlements which were at some distance from 



68 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the rest of the colony, and cruelly murdered 
many of the whites in their beds. A few es- 
caped, and told the sad tale to the Governor, and 
he sent a band of a thousand men, who pursued 
the savages to the fort where their families 
were, and would have stormed it, but that 
they begged for mercy and laid down their 
arms. No sooner, however, had the whites re- 
turned home, than the Indians again began at- 
tacking, and burning, and plundering, and this 
time the colonists had no pity on them, but 
burnt their fort to the ground, and killed or 
made prisoners of all the garrison. The savages 
were crushed by this heavy loss, and they gave 
up all idea of trying to conquer the whites. 
Many of them went to join the other tribes in 
the north, who had united together, and were 
called the Six Nations, and those who stayed 
in the country made peace with the whites, and 
a peaceful prosperous time set in for the colony, 
which lasted until the Great Revolution. 

And now we come to the story of the planting 
of Georgia ; in 1732 some good people in Eng- 
land, who wanted to help the poor and miserable, 
determined to plant a colony in the country 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 69 

south of Carolina, where no settlement had yet 
been made. Their idea was to send over large 
numbers of poor people then held in jails through- 
out Great Britian because unable to pay their 
debts. The King readily consented to the plan, 
and gave them a charter for the colony, which was 
to be called Georgia ; and other kind people hear- 
ing of it subscribed enough money to ship the emi- 
grants across, and start them in their new home. 
The first emigrants went over under the care of the 
good and wise James Oglethrope, who had been 
first in getting up the scheme, and they began the 
building of the town of Savannah. Next year other 
poor people came out, to each of whom a piece of 
land was given ; but it very soon became clear that 
these emigrants lacked the energy that makes a col- 
ony prosper. They soon began to vie with the 
richer colonists of Virginia and Carolina, and 
wanted to own slaves as they did. The owners 
now offered fifty acres of land to any one who 
cared to come over and settle there, and who was 
neither poor nor distressed. This offer brought 
four hundred colonists from Germany, Scotland 
and England, in the year 1735. In 1740 there 
were a large number of emigrants in Georgia, but 



70 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

in spite of all the money that had been spent on the 
colony, the owners were bitterly disappointed in 
their hope of making it a prosperous happy home 
for the poor ; and had it not been for the subscrip- 
tions of the kind people in England, they would 
have been obliged to give it up and to leave the 
colonists to their fate. One thing which was 
much against them was the war, which had now 
broken out between England and Spain, and in 
consequence of which Oglethorpe was taken 
away from the good work he was doing in the 
colony, and sent with a small army against 
Florida, where there were several Spanish settle- 
ments. He took two forts and besieged St. 
Augustine, but the Spaniards defended it so 
bravely, that he was obliged to give up the siege, 
and returned home. Two years went by, and 
then the Spaniards, with thirty vessels and three 
thousand soldiers, came to punish the colony for 
their attack on St. Augustine. Oglethorpe 
raised as large a force as he could, but it was 
not a quarter the size of the Spanish army ; and 
he stationed himself at Frederica on the Island 
of St. Simon, hoping to be able to hold out until 
help came from Carolina. At the end of June 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 71 

the Spaniards came to anchor off St. Simon's 
Bay, and landing on the Island began to build 
forts. Oglethorpe knew he had hardly any 
chance, but he resolved to do his best, and 
hearing that they had divided their army into 
two parts, he thought he would take one by sur- 
prise ; and one night with a small body of men 
he cautiously crept up to the Spanish camp. 
The enemy were sleeping, and everything was 
perfectly still, when suddenly a French soldier 
in Oglethorpe's party fired his musket, and 
joined the Spaniards. At once the whole camp 
was in an uproar, the opportunity was lost, and 
Oglethorpe returned to Frederica as quickly as 
he could, in despair at the thought that the 
deserter would tell the enemy how few men he 
had. All night he lay awake wondering what 
he could do, and at last an idea came into his 
head. He wrote a letter to the deserter, in- 
structing him to tell the Spaniards how small the 
force was that opposed them, and to urge them 
to attack it at once, or if they would not do that, 
to get them to remain three days in the country, 
by which time, he said, help would have arrived 
from Carolina ] and he ended up the letter with 



72 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

a promise of reward, A captive was set free on 
condition that he would deUver this letter to the 
deserter, but, as Oglethorpe had hoped, he 
carried it instead direct to the Spanish Governor, 
who, after reading it, naturally supposed the 
deserter was a spy, and imprisoned him ; and 
three ships happening to appear off the coast, he 
imagined them to be the beginning of the ex- 
pected help from Carolina, and decided to 
attack the Georgians at once before any more 
troops could arrive. Oglethorpe, finding out 
what he meant to do, placed a small party of 
men in ambush, who fired suddenly upon the 
Spaniards, as they came marching up, and threw 
them into confusion ; and they supposing that 
there was a large force behind, fled back to 
their forts, and made all haste to get away from 
the country. And thus the cleverness of 
Oglethorpe saved the colony from a great danger, 
and his praises were sung throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. But all these troubles 
greatly hindered the success of Georgia, and the 
owners, wearied of their fruitless efforts, gave it 
over to the King in 1754. The whole system of 
government w^s changed; when it became the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 73 

property of the Crown, and many improvements 
were made ; much trading in cotton, rice and 
indigo was done, and at last Georgia really began 
to prosper. 



CHAPTER V 

In 1 748 Great Britain possessed thirteen colo- 
nies in North America, viz., Virginia, Massa- 
chusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Mary- 
land, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina 
and Georgia. 

For some time past the English Government 
had been anxiously watching the movements of 
the French, who had settlements in Canada from 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario. 
They had also built many military and trading 
stations from the frontiers of Canada to the city 
of New Orleans ; and a good deal of land, to 
which they had no right at all, they tried to 
claim, by sinking plates of metal in the ground, 
and carving the lilies of France on the forest 
trees ; and they were still carrying on the work 
which they had long ago begun, of connecting 
their northern and southern settlements by a 
chain of forts from Lake Ontario to the Ohio, 
74 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 75 

and from thence to the River Mississippi and 
New Orleans. As we said before, one English 
Governor tried to stop them, but in vain, and 
now some English merchants who had built a 
trading house on the banks of the Ohio were 
taken prisoners by the French, and carried off 
to Canada. The other traders indignantly- 
complained to the Governor, and he determined 
to send a message to the commander of the 
French forces on the Ohio, telling him to take 
away his troops and leave the country. It was 
a difficult thing to find any one trustworthy and 
discreet enough to be the bearer of this message, 
but the right man was at hand, viz., George 
Washington, now twenty-one years of age, who 
was afterwards to become the greatest man our 
country has ever known. George Washington 
was born and bred in Virginia ; he lost his 
father at an early age, and under the careful, 
loving rule of his mother, a woman of noble 
mind and character, he grew up until the time 
came for him to go to school. There he made 
great progress, particularly in arithmetic and 
geometry, and, what was rather a curious taste 
for a boy, he used to take great pleasure in 



76 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

writing out long forms of business proceedings. 
At a very early age too, he drew up a set of 
maxims, which he faithfully followed all his life ; 
the chief one of which was ** Labor to keep 
alive in your heart the little spark of celestial 
fire called conscience." Even his young and 
thoughtless schoolfellows felt that his was a 
nature far above their own, and they loved and 
respected him, and always brought their quarrels 
to him to settle. Though so thoughtful and 
earnest, he was a strong healthy boy, and de- 
lighted in sports of every kind, particularly any- 
thing in the way of soldiering, and he loved to 
form his schoolfellows into bands and play at 
fighting. His first post on leaving school was 
as a land surveyor and agent to a wealthy Eng- 
lish nobleman, who had been given a vast tract 
of wild and unexplored land in the colony, and 
he was only sixteen when he set out, compass 
and chain in hand, to map out an almost un- 
trodden wilderness. For three years he carried 
out his difficult and dangerous duties with the 
utmost care and skill, and at nineteen he was 
given the even more difficult task of taking care 
of one of the districts which were most in danger 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 77 

from the attacks of the French ; and thus it 
came about that the Governor, who had heard 
much of his high character and talents, confided 
to him the deUcate and dangerous mission of 
carrying this message to the French. Five 
hundred miles of peril through an unknown 
wilderness was the journey there, and equally 
weary and perilous was the journey back, and 
all that the French officer would say was, that 
the message should be sent on to the Governor 
in Canada, and he would act as he thought best. 
This reply did not satisfy the English Governor, 
and, full of confidence in Washington, he sent 
him with a body of men to attack the French at 
Fort Duquesne in the spring of 1754. On the 
way thither Washington put to flight a party of 
French who were sent out to stop him, and as 
he drew near the Fort, a second party marched 
out to attack him, and though they were more 
than double his own force, Washington met 
them, undaunted, and cheered on his men, who 
fought with great bravery till the French, tired 
of the struggle, made a treaty with Washington, 
on condition that he went back to Virginia. 
The English Governor now began to see that 



78 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

he must use every effort to drive out the French, 
or he would lose the whole of the valley of the 
Mississippi. With help from England he col- 
lected a number of troops, and in the spring of 
^755> General Braddock, who was appointed 
commander-in-chief, began to make preparations 
in Virginia to proceed with a large army against 
Fort Duquesne. He found, however, that it 
took a very long time to obtain all the horses, 
wagons and provisions he wanted, and growing 
impatient of the delay he set out with twelve 
hundred men, leaving the rest of the army to 
follow when everything was ready. Braddock had 
only just come out from England, where he had 
won a great name as a general, but he knew noth- 
ing whatever of the mode of warfare of the sav- 
ages, or of their custom of hiding behind trees and 
rocks, and shooting unseen at the enemy. He 
had been warned, however, and on his march 
through the wilderness Washington, who was 
with him, repeatedly begged him to keep a care- 
ful lookout ; but Braddock only laughed scorn- 
fully, confident in his own judgment. As they 
drew near Fort Duquesne, Washington made 
one last attempt to convince him of the danger, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 79 

and offered to go on in front with a few men, 
and scour the country, to prevent any chance of 
an ambush, but his offer was dechned, and the 
army moved forward as before. They were 
now within five miles of Fort Duquesne, and the 
way lay through a narrow valley with high rocks 
on either side. All seemed peaceful and quiet, 
and the troops were marching gaily on, when 
suddenly a wild yell burst from the rocky sides 
of the valley, and hundreds of shots poured 
forth on all sides. Taken by surprise, the front 
ranks were thrown into confusion; Braddock 
hurried up to help them, and order was restored, 
but it was only a brief lull ; the attack was re- 
newed with greater fury than before, and hid- 
den behind the trees and rocks the Indians kept 
up a continuous fire ; officers and men fell all 
around, but Braddock would not retreat ; five 
horses were shot under him, and still he fought 
on desperately, until every officer except Colonel 
Washington was either killed or wounded, and 
then a stray shot hit him and he fell. When they 
found themselves without a leader the troops 
were filled with a panic, and fled in disorder, 
and but for Washington and his little band of 



8o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

colonists, they would all have been shot down. 
The army in its wild flight met the remainder of 
the forces coming up behind, and terrified by 
the looks of their comrades, they too turned, 
and the whole force retreated as far as Philadel- 
phia, leaving the frontiers of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania undefended. 

Two other expeditions went out against the 
French in the summer of 1755, one against Fort 
Niagara, and the other against Crown Point, but 
both were unsuccessful, and thus gloomily ended 
the campaign of 1755. 

The colonists now determined on even greater 
efforts, and General Shirley whom they had 
placed at the head of the army, held a council 
of war in New York to make plans for the next 
year, but before he could arrange anything, or- 
ders arrived from England that Lord Loudon 
was to be the commander-in-chief in his place. 
The army he had collected was larger and better 
prepared for war than any ever before mustered 
in our country, but the change of commanders, 
and the various ceremonies to greet Lord Lou- 
don on his arrival, caused a great deal of delay 
and before the English were ready to start, news 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 8i 

reached them that Oswego had surrendered to 
a large army of French and Indians under Gen- 
eral Montcalm, and that many of the unfortu- 
nate garrison had been cruelly put to death by the 
savages. Lord Loudon, unmoved by this sad 
news, declared that it was too late to do any- 
thing this year, and the campaign of 1766, 
which had begun so well, came to a close with- 
out any honor to England or any good to the 
colonies. This was chiefly owing to the foolish- 
ness of the King's advisers, who, instead of 
placing the management of the war in the hands 
of officers who understood the country, and the 
Indian method of warfare, gave it to men who 
knew and cared nothing about the colonies and 
only wanted to make themselves important by a 
great deal of show and parade. 

The next campaign was to open with the 
siege of Louisburg, and in the spring Loudon 
sailed from New York with a large army, but, on 
the way, hearing that there was a very strong 
garrison at Louisburg, and that the French were 
ready and even eager for an attack, he lost heart 
and gave up the expedition. While time was 
thus being wasted by the English the French 



82 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

were very busy, and in March General Mont- 
calm set out to besiege Fort William Henry on 
Lake George. Webb, an English general, who, 
with a force of a thousand men, was holding 
Fort Edward fifteen miles to the south, heard 
that Montcalm was coming, but he sent Colo- 
nel Munro to take the command at Fort 
William Henry without a word of warning, 
and when the next day a fleet of boats, filled 
with men, approached the fort, Munro was 
quite unprepared for an attack, but he was a 
brave man, and though his little garrison was 
surrounded by an army of more than three 
times its size, he held out for some days, hop- 
ing for help from General Webb, to whom he 
had at once sent an urgent message; but no 
help came, Webb sending word that he could 
do nothing, and that Munro must surrender on 
the best terms he could. This, after a defense 
of six days, Munro did, on condition that the 
garrison should be protected from the savages, 
whose horrible customs in war they knew only 
too well. Montcalm agreed, and the French en- 
tered the fort, but the next morning the sav- 
ages slipped into the town, and began to plun- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 83 

der, and, no one stopping them, they murdered 
the sick and wounded ; and then, roused to 
fury by the blood they had shed, they fell 
upon the unarmed garrison and began to slay 
them, filling the air with their yells, with which 
the cries of the dying mingled. Munro rushed 
to Montcalm, and begged him to remember his 
promise, but the French general only shrugged 
his shoulders, the savages went on with their evil 
work unchecked, and any of the garrison who 
escaped death they carried away captive into 
the wilderness. The next day General Webb 
sent a scout to watch the movements of the 
enemy, and when he crept cautiously up to the 
fort he only found a heap of smoking ruins, 
and many hundreds of dead bodies lying on 
the ground. When the sad story reached 
England, and it became known that Lord Lou- 
don and his generals had done nothing, the 
people began to understand how very badly 
affairs in the colony were being managed, and 
with great indignation they insisted, much 
against the weak King's wish, that his advisers 
should be changed, and William Pitt, a man 
of great talent, was placed at the head of the 



84 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

government. He at once saw what was 
wanted, and making a clean sweep of all the 
officers commanding in the colonies, he re- 
placed them with clever, trustworthy men. It 
was decided that Louisburg, Ticonderoga and 
Duquesne should be the first places attacked, 
and the colonies were called upon to give all the 
help in their power. The command of the ex- 
pedition against Louisburg was placed in the 
hands of General Amherst, and with him went 
General Wolfe, a young man of the greatest 
promise. Wolfe had joined the English army 
at the age of fourteen, and his pluck and daring 
had attracted the eagle eye of Pitt, who at once 
saw his worth, and in spite of his youth, and the 
rules of the army, made him a brigadier -gen- 
eral, and sent him out to America to share the 
command with Lord Amherst. Though often 
ailing in body, Wolfe was the most daring and 
energetic man in the army, and it was his great 
gift to be able to triumph over difficulties which 
drove other men to despair. Amherst was a 
brave general too, and Louisburg soon fell into 
their hands. 

General Abercrombie was chosen to go against 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 85 

Ticonderoga, and he took with him Lord Howe, 
a brave young officer whom all the soldiers 
loved, and of whom great things were hoped. 
But as they drew near the fort, they were fired 
upon by the French, and Lord Howe was killed. 
When they saw him fall, his men, thirsting for 
revenge, dashed forward, and threw themselves 
furiously against the fort, firing at it without 
ceasing, and trying to take it by every means in 
their power. They even got ladders and tried 
to climb over the walls, heedless of the heavy 
fire which the French on their side poured down 
upon them. For four hours they struggled and 
fought with the greatest bravery and courage, 
and the noise of the battle could be heard many 
miles off Hke continual thunder. At length when 
two thousand of his men were killed or wounded, 
Abercrombie, despairing of success, drew off his 
troops. But restless under this defeat, and 
anxious to do something, he sent one of his regi- 
ments against Frontenac on Lake Ontario, a fort 
containing great stores of merchandise, food and 
firearms, and captured it. This was a great loss 
to the French, as they now had no merchandise 
with which to tempt the Indians to fight for 



86 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

them, and they suffered, too, for want of 
food. 

The third expedition against Fort Duquesne 
was placed in the hands of General Forbes, who 
started from Philadelphia at the beginning of 
July, and marched for many a long and weary 
mile over mountains and swamps. When he 
was within a few miles of the Fort he sent on 
some men to see what the enemy were doing, 
but unfortunately they were met by a party of 
French soldiers, who set upon them, and de- 
stroyed them all. Forbes, however, undaunted, 
went steadily on, and the French, suddenly 
frightened, left the fort without striking a blow, 
and fled to the settlement on the Mississippi; 
and so Fort Duquesne fell into the hands of the 
English, and its name was changed to Fort Pitt. 
In this year of 1758 the tide of victory had in- 
deed turned ; out of the three expeditions, two 
had been completely successful, while the leader 
of the third had made an important capture. 

Pitt next decided to attack the three greatest 
strongholds of the French in Canada, Forts 
Niagara, Ticonderoga and Quebec. The two 
first were taken without much difficulty, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 87 

there now remained what seemed an almost im- 
possible feat, the taking of Quebec. This town 
was built half-way up a steep cliff, on the north- 
west side of the river St. Louis, and was one of 
the strongest positions in the world. It was 
defended by cannon, perched upon the high 
rocks which surrounded it on every side. 
Every attempt to take it had hitherto failed, and 
Montcalm, the brave and crafty, had stationed 
himself there. To any one but Pitt the attempt 
would have seemed pure madness, but he be- 
lieved that the most dangerous and difficult 
enterprises are often the most successful. He 
fixed upon General Wolfe as the man for his 
purpose, and sent with him three other officers 
all young and brave like himself. They sailed 
from Halifax with eight thousand men, and 
landed on the Island of Orleans, a few miles 
from Quebec, to consider the difficulties which 
had to be overcome. Wolfe saw that these were 
very great, but his determination to succeed 
only rose the higher. He began by firing upon 
the town but he could not place his cannon 
near enough to have much effect ; then he tried 
to set fire to the ships and stores of the French, 



88 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

but without success, Montcalm being very 
watchful and wary. As time went by, and 
victory seemed no nearer, Wolfe became very 
unhappy. At last he moved higher up the 
river, and there he found that the fortifications 
were not quite so strong, and that if he could 
scale the heights behind them, he could soon 
overcome the very small guard by whom they 
were defended. The difficulty was to scale the 
precipice, and besides seeming almost impossible, 
this was a very dangerous thing to do ; the 
current of the river was very rapid just there, 
and the shore sloping, and the landing-stage so 
narrow that it might easily be missed in the 
dark, when the attempt would have to be made 
in order to hide their movements from the 
enemy. But Wolfe resolved to risk it, and in 
the stillness of the night the army rowed with 
muffled oars across the river to the landing- 
stage, and an hour before daybreak they began 
to climb the rocks. Wolfe himself led them, 
and one by one they clambered up, catching 
hold of roots, bushes and bits of rock, till the 
whole army stood safe at the top on the Heights 
of Abraham. When Montcalm was told what 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 89 

they had done he could hardly believe it, but he 
soon found it to be only too true, and then he 
knew that he must fight. He made ready and 
charged at the head of his troops upon the Eng- 
lish, who received him with a fierce fire. A long 
struggle followed, and General Wolfe received 
two painful wounds, but he hid them from his 
soldiers, and pressed on gallantly into the 
thickest of the fight, until at last he received a 
third and deadly wound, and had to be carried 
into the rear of the army, where in spite of his 
fast failing strength, he watched the fight most 
eagerly. Montcalm, too, received a mortal 
wound, and when he fell the left wing of the 
French gave way; part of them were driven 
back into the town, and part into the river. 
Suddenly rose the cry of '< They fly, they fly." 
" Who fly ? " said Wolfe, raising himself with a 
last eflbrt. "The French," was the answer. 
"Then I die content," he said, and fell back 
dead. Five days after the city surrendered to 
the English, and the French retreated to Mon- 
treal, against which the whole British force in 
America was sent ; it proved too strong to be 
resisted, and in 1760 Montreal was theirs, and 



9o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

one by one the French posts fell into their 
hands, till in 1763 the war ended, peace was 
made at Paris, and France gave to England the 
whole of her possessions in Canada. 



CHAPTER VI 

When the rejoicings over this great and 
brilUant conquest of Canada had somewhat 
calmed down, England found herself very much 
in debt ; she had added honor and glory to her 
name, and land to her Empire, but the war had 
cost her a huge sum, and, seeking for some 
means by which it could be repaid, the min- 
isters of Great Britain decided to do a thing 
which had never been done before, viz., to tax 
the colonies. They forgot the heavy losses the 
colonists themselves had suffered, how their 
lands had been laid waste, their property de- 
stroyed, their houses burned down, and many of 
their best men killed. The interests of Great 
Britain had always been their only care, and to 
enrich her they had insisted that the colonies 
should only trade with England, thus taking 
away much of their profits, and though the 
colonists had borne this and many other hard 
laws with patience, it had made them feel hurt 
and angry with the mother country ; and now 
91 



92 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

when it became known that Parhament had 
decided to tax them, their indignation knew no 
bounds, and they determined they would not 
endure it. They sent letters to England, which 
respectfully but decidedly denied the right of 
Great Britain to collect taxes in the colonies, 
supporting their denial with clear and powerful 
reasons. It was at this stage of the excitement 
that Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest of 
our great men, sailed to London to try and 
arrange affairs. 

Franklin had begun life as a journeyman 
printer, in Boston, his native town, where he 
and his brother carried about and sold a 
newspaper, which they wrote and printed 
themselves. One day an article appeared 
in it which offended one of the Elders of 
the colony, and he insisted on the paper 
being given up. With only a few dollars in his 
pocket Benjamin left his brother and sought a 
new field for his labors in Philadelphia, where 
he gradually worked his way up by industry and 
thrift, until he became one of the richest and most 
respected men in the colonies, and in 1753 was 
raised to the high position of Postmaster-Gen- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 93 

eral. Everything he did was practical and use- 
ful and carried out by rule and measure. His 
fame as a man of science and an electrician had 
spread all over America and Europe, and raised 
his country in the eyes of other nations. He 
did a great deal of good for the city of Philadel- 
phia, founding a library and many other things, 
and his ''Poor Richard's Almanac" helped to 
make his countrymen love learning. No matter 
what was on hand every one asked first, *'Have 
you consulted Franklin on the subject, and what 
does he think of it ? " No one could have been 
better fitted to uphold the rights of the colonies 
before the Parliament of England. He was 
warmly received and his advice asked about the 
bill which the ministers proposed to pass for the 
taxing of the colonies. It was called the Stamp 
Act, and set forth that no agreements could be 
made unless they were written on paper bought 
from the Government at a very high price. 
Franklin, of course, opposed the bill with all 
his might, declaring it would be most unwise to 
levy such a tax and that our people would never 
allow it. However, in spite of all he could say 
the matter was laid before Parliament, and a 



94 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

brilliant speech was delivered to support it, but 
no sooner had the speaker sat down, than up 
jumped Colonel Barre, a great friend of the 
colonists, who poured forth such a flood of elo- 
quence in abuse of the bill, that, for the mo- 
ment the whole House was taken aback, but 
they soon recovered and the bill was passed. 
Franklin, writing the next night to a friend at 
home said, ^' The sun of liberty is set, you must 
light up the candles of industry and economy." 
*'Be assured," was the reply, "that we shall 
light up torches of quite another sort." When 
the bad news reached the colonies great sorrow 
and dismay was felt, as the colonists saw that 
they must either give up their rights without a 
struggle, or resist the government of the country 
to which they had always been loyal. Patrick 
Henry, a young and clever Burgess of Virginia 
sent pamphlets all over the country, asserting 
the rights of the colonists, and denying the right 
of Parliament to tax America, and his words 
awoke response in Boston and other towns. 
William Pitt, whose ill health had prevented 
him from being present at the passing of the 
Stamp Act, had now come back into power, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 95 

in his very first speech he said decidedly that 
England had no right to tax the colonies, and 
that he rejoiced America had resisted. He 
pointed out too that the profit of Great Britain 
from her trade with the colonies was two million 
pounds a year, and this was the price the colo- 
nists paid her for protection ; in fact he so strongly 
opposed the Stamp Act that, to the great joy of 
the colonies, it was set aside. But this joy was 
short-lived ; once more ill health compelled Pitt 
to retire, and then the enemies of the colonists 
had it all their own way, and a new tax was 
levied by Parliament on glass, tea, and several 
other things. Fresh resistance was the result, 
particularly at Boston, and to awe the citizens 
General Gage, the commander-in-chief brought 
two regiments into the town and quartered them 
in the State House. It made our free-spirited 
people very angry to see the soldiers parading 
the streets, and guards mounted at every turn, 
and there were daily outbreaks of discontent. 
Even the very children caught the general feel- 
ing. The boys of Boston in the winter used to 
build snow houses on the common and slide 
down them in their sleds. But the English 



96 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

troops destroyed these hills in idle unkindness, 
and though the children built them up again 
and again, they were always pulled down. At 
last the children could bear it no longer, and a 
band of the biggest boys went to General Gage 
and complained. Gage asked who had sent 
them, and they replied proudly that no one 
had ; they had come of their own free will, as 
they would not bear such treatment any longer. 
The general could not help admiring the proud 
free spirit of the children, and he warned his 
soldiers that any one offending in the same way 
again would be severely punished. 

One day there was a quarrel between the sol- 
diers and some rope-makers, with whom the 
former had interfered, and it ended in a 
fight. Others joined in and soon a large crowd 
gathered, armed with clubs, and the soldiers 
finding themselves getting the worst of it, drew 
their pistols and fired upon the mob, killing four 
men and wounding others. Confusion and up- 
roar followed, and the Governor, who had been 
summoned, had much ado to persuade the angry 
people to return to their homes. He reproached 
Preston, the officer in charge, for firing at the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 97 

people, and sent him to prison for trial. The 
next day the citizens held a meeting, and de- 
clared that unless the troops were immediately 
sent away from the town the riots would con- 
tinue, so the Governor unwillingly gave orders 
for their removal. Three days afterwards the 
funeral of the men who had been killed took 
place. It was conducted with great pomp and 
ceremony. All the shops were shut, and the 
bells tolled, and four processions from different 
parts of the town met at the spot where the 
*' Boston massacre," as they called it, had taken 
place, and proceeded to the burial-ground, fol- 
lowed by a huge crowd on foot and in carriages. 
The trial of Captain Preston came on and 
lasted six weeks. His cause was defended by 
John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two clever 
lawyers, and it was much to their credit and 
that of the jury, that although all their sympathy 
was with the people, they found Preston innocent, 
as he had not told his soldiers to fire. About a 
dozen years ago Boston set up a monument on 
the common to the memory of the men massa- 
cred that day, which would seem to show that 
feeling for them is long lived. 



98 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

While Franklin was in England certain letters 
from the Governor of Massachusetts to the Eng- 
lish ministers, urging them to be very harsh to 
our people, fell into his hands, and he sent them 
over to America. They were read before the 
Massachusetts House of Burgesses, arousing 
great indignation, and a letter was at once sent 
to England, begging for the removal of the Gov- 
ernor. When it became known in London that 
the letters had been read, and Franklin stated 
that he was the cause, a storm of anger broke 
on his head and he was dismissed from his office 
of Postmaster-General. This insult to one of 
their greatest men, while he was acting simply in 
their interest made our people still more bitter 
against England. 

In March, 1770, the English Parliament, hop- 
ing to avert the outbreak it saw pending, set 
aside the tax on all goods except tea, but our 
people felt the injustice of their being taxed at 
all, and refused to allow any tea to be brought 
into the country. In the meantime Joseph War- 
ren and Samuel Adams were sending addresses 
and pamphlets all over the country, entreating 
every one to join in the cause of Liberty. The 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 99 

English tea merchants were not content to lose 
all their trade in America, and resolved to send 
over the tea as usual, hoping to be able to sell 
it. But the people were determined that no 
taxed tea should be landed there; they were 
fighting for a principle. 

The people having shown their determination 
not to buy taxed tea, the king and his advisers 
tried to trick them into doing so. Tea sent to 
America by the East India Company had al- 
ways paid duty at some British port on the way. 
This duty was now taken off, which enabled the 
company to sell tea cheaper than it had ever 
been sold before. It was thus hoped that the 
people would be induced to buy and the princi- 
ple of taxation be sustained. The several ships 
laden with tea arrived. If they were not un- 
loaded within twenty days the custom-house 
oflicers were empowered to seize and unload 
them ; nor could the laden ships go out to sea 
again without a pass from the governor. Thus a 
guard of the people watched the vessels to see 
that the tea was not landed, and meetings were 
daily held. On the 1 6th day of December, 1 7 73, 
nineteen days had expired since the arrival of 



loo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the tea. Seven thousand people were assembled 
around the Old South meeting-house, some pray- 
ing within, others exhorting without, when the 
owner of the ships returned from a visit to the 
governor, who still refused the pass to let the 
loaded vessels leave the port. Next day the tea 
might be landed by force. That night a party 
disguised as Indians went through the streets 
and down to the wharf, clambered over the 
sides of the vessels, broke open three hundred 
and forty-two chests of tea, and emptied their 
contents into the water. This was not done by 
a rowdy element, but by some of the most re- 
spectable citizens of Boston, and is believed to 
have been planned by Samuel Adams. This 
** Boston Tea Party," as it has been called, en- 
raged the English ministers, and to punish the 
Bostonians, they passed an Act, called the Bos- 
ton Port Bill, forbidding any goods to be landed 
in Boston, until the tea was paid for. Letters of 
sympathy poured into Boston from all the col- 
onies, praising the citizens for their determined 
stand, and encouraging them to persevere. The 
people of Marblehead and Salem offered the 
Boston merchants their harbors, wharves and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES loi 

warehouses free of cost, and large sums of 
money were collected for them, but for which, 
the many who were thrown out of employ- 
ment, would have suffered severely. In all the 
churches prayers were offered up for help to 
guard the nation's liberty and her rights. 

On the fifth of September a meeting was held 
at Philadelphia, which was attended by repre- 
sentatives from every colony except Georgia, 
and it was resolved that all trade with Great 
Britain should be stopped until America's rights 
were recognized. A pamphlet setting forth this 
resolution, and, at the same time, expressing the 
strongest affection for the mother country, and 
loyalty to the King, and stating that all America 
asked for was peace, liberty and safety, was sent 
out all over the world, and met with sympathy 
everywhere, especially from Pitt, and our people, 
as they read it, gloried in the perfect justice of 
their cause, and prepared themselves to stand 
by it to the death, if need were. 

Pitt saw that something must be done at 
once, or war there would be between the mother 
country and her colonies, and with the help of 
Franklin he drew up a Bill, to set aside the tax 



I02 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

on tea, to recall the troops to England, to prom- 
ise that the charters of the colonies should not 
be broken. But the ministers in power would 
not hear of it, nor would they give in on any 
point. ''America's proud spirit," they said, 
''must be broken," thinking it an easy thing 
to do. 

The colonies were now in a bustle of prep^ 
aration; old and young, rich and poor alike, 
got arms as best they could, and spent all 
their time in drilling and exercising, so as to be 
ready to fight for their country when the time 
came ; even the women and girls set about cast- 
ing balls and making cartridges; and before 
long each town and village had in readiness a 
military force called " Minute Men," who, at a 
minute's notice, night or day, would answer 
their country's call. 

Neither were the British idle ; ten thousand 
men arrived from England, and General Gage, 
the new British Governor of Massachusetts, en- 
camped several regiments on the common in 
Boston, and built fortifications on the narrow 
strip of land, called the Neck, which joined the 
town to the mainland ', and on the evening of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 103 

the eighteenth of April he made the first move 
by sending eight hundred men to destroy a 
quantity of provisions and miUtary stores be- 
longing to our people at Concord. News of 
this was carried to the adjacent country by Bos- 
ton patriots, who rode in every direction, awak- 
ening the farmers. Foremost among these was 
the brave Paul Revere, whose ''Midnight Ride " 
has been immortalized in song and story. Soon 
the ringing of bells and the firing of guns sum- 
moned the Minute Men of Lexington, a small 
town between Boston and Concord, who formed 
themselves in a square on the grass near the 
meeting-house about two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, when the British troops came marching up 
the road. The officer in command called upon 
the Minute Men to lay down their arms ; and 
as they did not obey, a volley was fired, killing 
eight of them; the others fell back, and the 
British marched on to Concord. But there they 
were met by the Minute Men of that town, who 
after some hard fighting compelled them to re- 
treat, leaving behind them several dead and 
wounded. The Minute Men all over the 
country were now in arms, and, hiding behind 



I04 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

trees and walls fired upon the British all the 
way back to Boston. Being good marksmen 
they did a great deal of damage, and the troops 
arrived at headquarters weary and disheartened, 
and much reduced in number. This first bat- 
tle^, the battle of Lexington, caused great excite- 
ment, and the hearts of all beat high with devo- 
tion to their country ; the farmer left his plough, 
and the mechanic his tools, and, seizing any 
arms they could find, they hastened to the 
camp, and in a few days a large army was as- 
sembled, which, under the command of General 
Ward and General Putnam, surrounded the 
town of Boston. 

Volunteers, too, were busy in other parts of 
the country. Colonel Ethan Allen with his 
Green Mountain Boys, a band of young men 
from Vermont, joined Captain Benedict Arnold, 
who headed sixty men from Connecticut, and 
together they hastened to surprise Ticonderoga ; 
th.ey crossed the lake, and at dawn of day 
landed near the fortress, and called on the gar- 
rison to surrender. " In whose name do you 
come? " asked the commander. '^In the name 
of the ^reat Jehovah and the United Colonies,'* 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 105 

was Allen's answer, and, as there were only fifty 
men with him in the fort, the commander was 
obliged to yield, and Arnold seized the valuable 
stores. At Crown Point they were also success- 
ful, and thus without bloodshed two most im- 
portant forts, a hundred pieces of cannon, and 
a large quantity of provisions fell into the hands 
of our people, and these brilliant successes 
raised high the hopes of all. 

During the months of April and May, the 
troops surrounding Boston prevented the British 
from leaving the town ; but, when at the begin- 
ning of June Generals Howe, Clinton and Bur- 
goyne, with a large number of men arrived from 
England, Gage determined to cut his way 
through, and get out into the open country. 
Our people, being warned of his design, sent 
General Prescott with a small force one night to 
occupy Bunker's Hill, but misled by the dark- 
ness they took up a position on Breed's Hill, 
which is nearer Boston. They arrived about 
midnight, and at once began to dig entrench- 
ments, and, by working with all their might, at 
dawn had nearly finished. As soon as the 
British troops caught sight of what they were 



io6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

doing they began firing, but Prescott's force 
coolly went on with their work until it was com- 
pleted. General Gage, finding that his firing 
had no effect, resolved to drive them away, and 
about noon a large party of the British under 
General Howe landed at the extreme point of 
the Neck. All the country round was on the 
alert, and the roofs of the houses, and all the 
heights in the neighborhood, were covered with 
people watching with anxiety to see what was 
going to happen. The British marched slowly 
up the hill, and as they drew near the entrench- 
ments they were greeted with a fierce fire, which 
forced them to retreat, but they soon rallied, 
and, encouraged by their officers, again as- 
cended the hill. Once more a tremendous vol- 
ley scattered them, and this time they fled in 
wild disorder, leaving Howe almost alone on the 
hillside. Their flight was checked by Clinton, 
who had hurried up from Boston, and led by 
him, for the third time they advanced, being 
compelled forward by their officers, who 
marched behind them with drawn swords. But 
no deadly fire met them now ; all the powder 
and shot had been used up, and the British en- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 107 

tered the entrenchments untouched. Our peo- 
ple defended themselves for a while with the butt- 
end of their muskets, but soon gave up the 
struggle, and retreated over Charlestown Neck ; 
the enemy being too much injured to think of 
pursuit. In this battle of Bunker's Hill, as it 
was called, the British lost more than double as 
many men as our people, who were greatly 
cheered by the steadiness and bravery which 
their undisciplined forces had displayed. In 
this fight fell the brave General Warren. 

Shortly after this battle a meeting of repre- 
sentatives from the thirteen colonies was held 
at Philadelphia, and by the wish of every one 
present, George Washington was chosen com- 
mander-in-chief, with Artemas Ward, Charles 
Lee, Philip Schuyler and Israel Putnam as his 
generals. He at once set out for the camp at 
Cambridge, where he found an army of fourteen 
thousand men, all of whom were ardently de- 
voted to the cause of liberty, but who knew 
nothing whatever of the duties of soldiers, and 
had no powder nor tents, nor any of the many 
things necessary to an army. They had left 
their farms, and houses, and shops, without any 



io8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

one to look after them, to fly to the aid of their 
country, and to rally round the new American 
flag, their pride and glory, with its thirteen red 
and white stripes, and its thirteen stars on a blue 
ground in the corner, representing the thirteen 
States, the " Old Thirteen," as they were often 
called. It was after the battle of Bunker's Hill 
that the Stars and Stripes had been hoisted for 
the first time, hastily made out of a white shirt, 
a red petticoat, and a blue jacket. Washington 
set to work to get his army into order, and to 
teach the men the art of war ; and the capture 
of a British ship, laden with stores, provided 
them with many of the things they wanted. 

The governors of Virginia, New York, South 
Carolina and North Virginia had already 
left their palaces and taken refuge in British 
ships. 

In October, the port of Falmouth, now Port- 
land, Maine, was burnt to ashes by the British, 
although the citizens tried to make terms. 
There were really only a few old men and 
women and children in the town, for the able 
men had gone to join their brethren in Boston. 
This, and many similar acts, fanned the flame 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 109 

of American resentment against England. The 
firing of Falmouth by Captain Mowatt was one 
of the meanest acts of the war : only a few 
months before his ship had put in at that port 
and he had been royally entertained by its 
people. 

In the early spring of 1776 an attack on Bos- 
ton was planned ; a cannonade in one part of 
the town drew off the attention of the garrison, 
while General Thomas quietly took possession of 
Dorchester Heights, and before morning dawned, 
with the most wonderful industry, he had built a, 
line of fortifications which commanded the har- 
bor and the town. These works, which seemed 
to have been raised by magic, caused Howe, the 
new commander-in-chief of the British, to won^ 
der and admire. He saw that unless he could 
capture them the town would be lost, and the 
next day with a large force he embarked in boats 
for the attack; but a furious storm came on 
and drove them back, and the opportunity thus 
lost, he had no choice but to leave Boston, and 
this he did with all his troops on the 1 7th of 
March. Great and general were the rejoicings 
when the glad news of the taking of Boston 



no HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

spread through the land, and the desire of the 
nation for freedom grew stronger. 

While these events were happening at Boston, 
General Montgomery, a young officer of brilliant 
talents, set out for Canada, and after taking St. 
Johns, which commanded the entrance to the 
country, he went on to Montreal. The gov- 
ernor of that town, hearing of his approach, 
grew frightened, and fled away in the night 
down the river, in a boat with muffled oars. 
The next day Montgomery entered the city, and 
though the citizens had made no terms, he 
treated them with every kindness, and declared 
that their property, religion and rights should be 
respected. This gentle, courteous treatment 
won over many of the Canadians, and it was 
with a much larger army that he began to march 
towards Quebec, where more troops were to join 
him. These troops were coming from Boston 
under the command of Benedict Arnold, and 
the way they had to come was long and very 
difficult. On the 23d of September they 
reached the mouth of the Kennebec, and, tak- 
ing to boats, rowed up the river, pulling hard 
against the rapid current, and every now and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES iii 

then landing to drag the boats, and all their 
baggage, round one of the many rapids. 
After leaving the river the way lay over deep 
swamps and rocky unexplored mountains, and 
wearily they toiled on. Many fell ill and died, 
and after a time provisions became scarce, and 
they had to eat dogs and even their leather car- 
tridge boxes and shoes ; and at last, when they 
were still thirty miles from any human habita- 
tion, they found themselves without a morsel of 
food of any kind. But Arnold still kept up a 
brave heart, and, taking with him the strongest 
of those who were left, he went steadily forward, 
until he arrived at a French settlement, where 
he was most kindly received, and supplied with 
food ; but he hardly waited to satisfy his own 
hunger, so anxious was he to get back with pro- 
visions to those whom he had left, almost per- 
ishing, thirty miles behind. The food revived 
the weary men and gave them strength to strug- 
gle on to the settlement, and there they rested and 
refreshed themselves for awhile. Three days' 
march brought them to Quebec, before which 
they suddenly appeared, to the great surprise of 
the inhabitants, who had never dreamed of any 



112 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

one being bold enough to cross the desolate 
wilderness, and if only Arnold had been able to 
cross the St. Lawrence at once the city would 
have fallen into his hands; but unfortunately 
there were no boats to be had, and he had to 
wait until the night of the thirteenth of Decem- 
ber, when he landed, as Wolfe had done before 
him, and ascended the Heights of Abraham, 
hoping to take the city by surprise ; but, finding 
every one on the alert, and the place barricaded 
and fortified, he retired to wait for Montgomery. 
That young commander soon arrived, bringing 
food and clothes, which were badly needed by 
Arnold's brave little band. The whole force 
only numbered eleven hundred, but Montgomery 
went unhesitatingly forward with a flag in his 
hand, and summoned the town to surrender ; 
the only reply was a volley of musketry. To 
take the town with so small a force seemed im- 
possible, but both Montgomery and Arnold were 
resolved to attempt it. They began by raising a 
mound of snow and water, which soon became 
ice, and, placing their six cannon on it, for days 
tried to batter the walls. All the time the snow 
fell unceasingly, the cold was terrible, and the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 113 

sufferings of the troops intense, particularly as 
smallpox broke out among them; but in spite 
of all these trials their devotion to their leader 
and their cause remained unshaken. Mont- 
gomery, at length, determined to make a des- 
perate effort to storm the city, and on the last 
day of December, while a violent storm was 
raging, he divided his men into four bands, two 
of which were to make pretended attacks, and 
divert attention from the movements of the 
other two, which were led by Montgomery and 
Arnold. Montgomery, with his party, advanced 
along the river to attack the lower town, and 
came to a barrier of stocks, two of which he 
sawed off with his own hands, and through the 
opening thus made they were proceeding, when 
suddenly a bullet, fired by an unseen hand, 
came flying through the air, and Montgomery 
fell shot to the heart. 

Arnold, with his men, had also entered the 
town, but he too received a severe wound, and 
had to be carried off to a place of safety. The 
command now fell to a young officer named 
Morgan, who boldly approached the enemy and 
drove them from their guns ; but he and his 



114 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

men were only a little party in the middle of a 
strange town, with enemies on every side, and 
though they fought desperately, there was no 
chance for them, and they had to yield ; the 
few who managed to escape retreating to 
Montreal. 

All America mourned for Montgomery ; every 
one loved him, and even his enemies admired 
and respected him. 

Arnold, who had sadly retreated with the 
troops to Montreal, was joined there by General 
Thomas ; but even with his help, it would have 
been madness to await the coming of the enemy, 
and with slow and unwilling steps the patriots 
left Canada. The expedition had been a bold 
and daring one, and it had shown what rare 
courage and devotion our people possessed ; its 
failure was a great disappointment to the coun- 
try, but if it had been successful it might have 
injured the cause, as soldiers would have been 
required to defend the country thus conquered, 
while more important colonies were perhaps left 
unprotected. 

In the early summer of 1 776, a large number of 
British troops under Sir Henry Clinton came out 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 115 

to America, and at once began to attack Charles- 
ton, in South Carolina. Fortunately the city 
had been warned early in the spring, and was 
fully prepared for a siege. A strong fort, 
named Fort Moultrie, had been built on an 
island at the entrance to the harbor ; the streets 
were strongly barricaded, and lines of defense 
were built along the edge of the water. Gen- 
eral Lee was in command. He was a man of 
great courage and cleverness, who had fought 
all over the world. On the 28th of June nine 
ships of war, bristling with guns, opened fire 
upon Fort Moultrie, while a body of troops 
were ordered to cross over from the mainland 
and come up at the rear of the fort, but they 
found the sea too deep to wade through, and 
the battle went on without them; the firing 
from the ships was answered fiercely from the 
fort ; a fever of patriotism burnt in the veins of 
our people ; soldiers wounded to death urged on 
their countrymen in the cause of Liberty, and so 
death-dealing was the fire of the cannons, that 
more than once Clinton was the only man on 
the deck of his ship who was unhurt. From 
dawn till dark the battle raged, and as night 



ii6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

came on the British ships, grievously disabled, 
moved quietly off and set sail for New York, 
where the whole British force was now assem- 
bled. The praises and thanks of the whole 
American nation were showered upon the brave 
garrison of Charleston for their heroic resist- 
ance. 

William Penn, the peace-lover, now grown 
very old, made one last effort for peace, but his 
petition to Parliament received no reply; and 
meanwhile an Englishman, named Thomas 
Paine, who had come out to live in Virginia, and 
had warmly embraced the cause of Independence, 
wrote a pamphlet called ''Common Sense," 
which plainly set forth how impossible it would 
be to give in to the Government of England, and 
that independence was the only safe and honor- 
able course. His arguments were so convincing, 
that those who had wavered, became firm patri- 
ots, and the resolution to die rather than give up 
their liberty, made every American strong. On 
the 7th of June Lee brought forward the motion 
"That the United States are, and ought to be, 
free and independent States, and that their as- 
sociation with Great Britain is, and ought to be, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 117 

dissolved ; ' ' and a committee of five was ap- 
pointed, viz.: Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, 
Benjamin Franklin, Adams, Sherman and Liv- 
ingstone, to draw up a Declaration of Independ- 
ence, which was written out by Jefferson. This 
Declaration claimed liberty for all men, and de- 
clared that if any nation was under a government 
which was felt by all to be hurtful, they could 
set it aside and choose another ; it gave a list of 
the various injuries that America had suffered at 
the hands of the Kings of Great Britain, by 
reason of which it claimed that the American 
nation was freed from all obedience to the British 
crown, and had full power to levy war, make 
peace, establish commerce, and to do any other 
thing which independent States may of right do, 
and it ended up with the words, "And for the 
suppor of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mu- 
tually pledge to each other our lives, our for- 
tunes and our sacred honor." It was signed by 
the representatives of the Thirteen States, and 
was published on the Fourth of July. The day 
was celebrated by rejoicings and festivities in 
every city, town and village in the United Col- 



ii8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

onies, and ever since has been kept as a public 
holiday, and set apart for thanksgiving and re- 
joicing. 

It was supposed that New York would be the 
next point of attack, and every effort was made 
to strengthen and fortify it. In the beginning 
of July, General Howe arrived in America with 
a large force of men and ships. Putnam was 
ready for him at Brooklyn, and on the 2 2d of 
August, the British troops landed on the op- 
posite shore of Long Island, the two armies be- 
ing only four miles apart, and separated by hills 
over which there were three main roads. Put- 
nam expected that the enemy would come by 
the road to his right, and true enough, on the 
morning of the 26th a body of troops was seen 
moving along it, and another body along the 
centre road, and he went out to meet them, not 
noticing that a third and much larger party was 
coming along the road to the left ; and it was 
with great surprise and dismay that he found, 
while engaged in a fierce conflict on the centre 
road, that a body of troops had come up behind 
him and cut him off from Brooklyn. The 
patriots fought desperately, and, after losing 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 119 

over a thousand men, succeeded in cutting their 
way through the British, and getting back to 
Brooklyn. But even there they were no longer 
safe, and General Washington, when the bad 
news reached him, sent over boats, and under 
cover of a thick fog, conveyed the remainder of 
the troops back to New York, unseen by the 
enemy. Washington now began to fear that he 
might be shut up in the city, and as that would 
probably end in the loss of all his men, he left 
New York, and took up a position on the 
heights of Harlem, and next day the enemy 
entered the city, and burnt over a thou- 
sand of the houses. In October Washington 
left Harlem with half the army, the other half 
under Lee remaining behind, and after a skir- 
mish with General Howe retired to Pennsyl- 
vania. The defeat at Brooklyn seemed to take 
all the spirit out of Washington's army ; day by 
day numbers left him and returned to their 
homes. He called on the militia of New Jersey 
and Pennsylvania for help, but they did not 
answer to his call ; their courage seemed to fail 
them, and the career of the army to be nearly at 
an end. To make matters worse, Howe promised 



I20 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to pardon all those who would submit to Eng- 
land, but very few accepted his offer. Again 
and again Washington sent orders to Lee to join 
him, but Lee hesitated and delayed. He was 
jealous of Washington and hated him, and 
when at last he did set out, he was surprised on 
the way by the British, and taken prisoner. 
All his bravery deserted him when he found 
himself in the hands of the enemy, and he tried 
to betray his country, but luckily his wicked 
plans did not succeed. He was soon set free 
by the influence of Washington, who did not 
know how base he really was and he resumed 
his place in the army. 

The British thought that America was now 
almost subdued, and fully believed that one 
more effort would place in their power the re- 
maining handful of men. But Washington was 
not conquered yet. His country loved and be- 
lieved in him, in spite of his ill-success. They 
gave him power to raise an army, and left him 
free to carry on the war exactly as he thought 
best, and he determined that complete victory 
should yet be his. The capture of Charles Lee was 
really the best thing that could have happened 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 121 

at the time, for it placed the command he had 
held in the hands of General Sullivan, one of 
the bravest officers of the Revolution. It was 
Sullivan who afterwards with his small force 
opened up the interior of New York State, 
breaking the power of the Indians of the Six 
Nations, which materially hastened the final 
victory of American Arms. 

On Christmas Eve, when the snow lay thick 
on the ground, Washington took a few men, 
and, aided by Sullivan, crossed the Delaware 
at Trenton, where some of the British were 
stationed ; and, taking them quite by surprise, 
captured nine hundred of them, only losing 
nine of his own men in the attempt. This 
aroused the British, and they hastened to at- 
tack the patriots' camp, but Washington did 
not want to risk a battle yet, and quietly leav- 
ing with his men in the night, he marched to- 
wards Princeton, putting to flight two British 
regiments, whom he met on the way, and tak- 
ing three hundred prisoners. On reaching 
Princeton he found it empty ; the British regi- 
ment, who were guarding it, having fled when 
they heard of his coming. These successes 



122 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

once more raised the hopes of our people, num- 
bers went back to the camp, and all eyes were 
fixed on Washington as the saviour of his 
country. 

America now decided to ask aid from France, 
and sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to try and 
get a loan of money, a supply of firearms, and 
powder, and shot, and an acknowledgment of 
the Independence of the United States. He 
was received in the most flattering way, and 
was soon high in favor with the great nobles 
and ladies of the Court, and America's struggle 
for independence became the talk of Paris. The 
French government, however, would do noth- 
ing openly for fear of England, neither would 
they lend any money ; but they allowed arms 
to be secretly conveyed to America; and, so 
popular did the cause become, that many 
French officers begged to be allowed to join the 
American army ; chief and most eager of whom 
was the gallant young Marquis de la Fayette ; 
and when our people frankly told him that they 
had not even money enough to take him across 
the ocean, he was so anxious to go, that he 
hired a ship for himself and his friends, and ar- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 123 

rived in America in the spring of 1777. He 
was gladly welcomed and appointed Major- 
General in the army, and much good service he 
afterwards did. 

At the end of July, General Howe set sail with 
a large fleet for Chesapeake Bay, evidently 
meaning to attack Philadelphia; the patriot 
army at once began to march towards him, and 
Washington, being strongly urged by the peo- 
ple, who longed for a decisive battle, met the 
British at Brandywine Creek, but though his 
men fought with the utmost bravery, they were 
worsted in the struggle, and retreated to Read- 
ing, thus leaving Howe free to enter Philadel- 
phia in triumph. 

The British next determined to try and obtain 
command of the Hudson river, and thus cut off 
the States of New England from those lying 
south, and a large army of their best men, under 
the command of the brilliant and dashing Bur- 
goyne, set sail from England, and arrived at 
Quebec early in the spring. The first point of 
attack was to be Ticonderoga, but when the 
garrison heard of the powerful force that was 
coming against them they hastily left the 



124 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

fort and fled, closely followed by the Brit- 
ish. Meantime General Schuyler, who was in 
command of the patriot troops in Canada, called 
together the militia from all the country round, 
and helped by Arnold, who had joined him after 
capturing Fort Schuyler, he beset the British 
on their march, cutting off their supplies, and 
delaying them with constant little attacks. 

General Gates now replaced Schuyler, and the 
army moved forward to Stillwater, where the 
enemy were encamped, and a fierce battle took 
place, with great loss to the British. Burgoyne 
now began to feel dismayed, and to regret that 
he had so confidently brought his men into the 
wilderness, where they were surrounded by foes, 
and had no means of getting any more food if 
their supplies gave out. He sent a message to 
Sir Henry Clinton at New York, begging for 
help, and, giving his soldiers a smaller amount 
of food each day, waited anxiously for a week ; 
but as no help came he was obliged to fight 
again. All day long the battle raged furiously, 
and when night put an end to it, the British, 
who were badly beaten, withdrew under cover 
of darkness to the heights of Saratoga. Early 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 125 

next day Gates followed, and surrounded Bur- 
goyne and his men so closely, as to cut off every 
chance of escape. Burgoyne was in despair ; he 
had only provisions for three days longer, and 
for those three days he held out, hoping that 
help would come from New York ; but in vain, 
and on the 1 7th of October he surrendered with 
his whole army. Loud were the rejoicings of 
the patriots over this glorious victory which 
brought peace and security to the North. 

During the remainder of the autumn, Wash- 
ington fought bravely on, but with little success, 
and at length he withdrew to winter quarters in 
the woods of Valley Forge. The cold was in- 
tense, and the sufferings of the soldiers great. 
Food was scarce, they had very little clothing, 
and no shoes, and only huts to shelter them from 
the bitter weather. Never were patriots of any 
land tried more severely than were the men of 
the American army that terrible time, but they 
bore it with what seems to us now superhuman 
courage. It was the most direful period of 
Washington's career. 

The year of 1778 opened more hopefully. 
The French, encouraged by the victory of Sara- 



126 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

toga, acknowledged the independence of 
America and promised to support her; this 
frightened England, already dismayed at her 
losses, and she sent over agents to try and make 
peace, offering our people all that they had asked 
for at the beginning of the war. But in vain, 
and when the agents tried to bribe one of the 
leading burgesses, he met their offer with scorn, 
saying, " I am not worth purchasing, but such 
as I am, the King of Great Britain is not rich 
enough to do it." England had therefore no 
choice but to continue the war, and Sir Henry 
Clinton, the commander-in-chief, gathered his 
forces together and awaited the patriot army. 
Washington, who had left his huts in the forest, 
sent Lee forward to begin the attack, promising 
to bring up the rest of the army to support him. 
But Lee retreated when he saw the long lines of 
the foe waiting for him, to the great anger of 
Washington, who spoke very sharply to him and 
ordered him forward ; and between them they 
drove off the British, who went back to New 
York. The quick-tempered and proud Lee 
could not forget the way Washington had 
spoken to him, and demanded an apology. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 127 

A court-martial was held, but Lee was found 
guilty of disrespect, disobeying orders, and re- 
treating on the field of battle, and he was sent 
away for a year ; he never joined the army 
again, and spent the one year of life which re- 
mained to him in vainly trying to poison the 
minds of the people against Washington. 

In July, the promised help came from France, 
in the shape of a fleet of ships which, unfortu- 
nately, however, were so much damaged in a 
furious storm, that they had to retire at once to 
the West Indies to refit. The year ended up 
with the capture of the military forts in Georgia 
by the British, and a few small engagements in 
which our people came off victors ; and then the 
troops went back to their uncomfortable winter 
quarters. As time went on, and the war stopped 
all business and trade, the country got poorer 
and poorer ; paper money was issued, but it soon 
became worthless, and nothing could be bought 
with it. The army in particular suffered, and 
even the officers had not enough money to buy 
proper clothing ; but their great love for their 
country and their devotion to Washington made 
them patient and steadfast. 



128 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Early in the spring of 1780, Sir Henry Clin- 
ton appeared before Charleston, the capital of 
South Carolina, with a large force, and com- 
pelled the scanty garrison to surrender. Flushed 
with victory, he marched through the State, 
placing garrisons in various towns, and killing 
every one he met without mercy. He tried to 
make the Georgians take arms under him, but 
this they would not do, preferring to fight to the 
death. They were few in number compared to 
the enemy, but, under Colonel Sumter, they 
defeated many parties of the British, cheered on 
by the news that Gates, with a small army, was 
marching night and day to their relief. But 
Cornwallis with half the British forces was lying 
in wait for him, and surprised his weary troops 
one night, utterly routing them. Cornwallis 
then rode off at the head of his men to where 
Sumter was making his last stand, hourly hop- 
ing for Gates's promised help. But instead of 
friends, his bitter enemies surrounded Sumter, 
and, outnumbered and despairing, he had to 
give in. But even now the spirit of the Geor- 
gians was not broken ; they seemed to grow 
more steadfast with each defeat. Being at a 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 129 

loss for weapons, they cut swords from the saws 
in the sawmills ; and hiding themselves in the 
Avoods and marshes, they used to sally out in the 
dark and fall upon the British unawares, and so 
the spirit of freedom was kept alive in the State. 
Once a very daring band attacked a regiment 
which was encamped on the top of a mountain, 
and ascending it again and again, succeeded 
after many repulses in killing the British com- 
mander, and his followers surrendered. But 
though the patriots were so brave and desperate 
they had gained little this year. Money, and 
clothes, and food, were getting more and more 
scarce; but the troops unfed, unpaid and half 
clothed as they were, refused with one consent, 
when offered food and money in abundance by 
the British. In this dark hour a heavy blow 
fell upon the nation ; one of the men whom 
America held most dear by reason of his bravery 
and faithfulness, had turned traitor. Benedict 
Arnold, the gallant, the daring, the warm- 
hearted, had resolved to betray his country ; he 
was terribly in want of money, and the British 
gold tempted him. It has since come to light, 
too, that Arnold was jealous, smarting under 



I30 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

what he conceived to be a lack of appreciation 
of his services by Washington and others. Be- 
sides he was influenced by a Tory wife and her 
relatives. He was at the time in command 
of West Point, a very important fort, and he 
wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, promising to de- 
liver it into his hands for a certain sum of 
money. When this letter reached Clinton he 
sent Major Andre, a clever, brave young man, 
to settle the matter with Arnold. Disguised as 
a traveler, and provided with a pass, Andre got 
safely through the patriot lines one night, and 
had an interview with Arnold, who, it was 
agreed, should receive ^500,000, and a general's 
commission in the British army, in exchange 
for the fort at West Point. The matter settled, 
Andr6 set out to return ; he passed the guards 
safely, but before the end of his journey he was 
stopped by three New York soldiers, and think- 
ing they were British he did not trouble to show 
his pass, merely saying that he was a British 
officer. The words had hardly passed his lips 
when he saw his mistake, and he begged them 
to let him go, offering them his watch and all 
the gold he had with him ; but they only shook 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 131 

their heads, and took him off to their command- 
ing officer. In his boots were found the agree- 
ment, and a map of the works at West Point. 
Fearing for the safety of Arnold, Andre wrote 
him a letter, telling him what had happened, 
and Arnold at once made his escape to New 
York, where he received the money for which he 
had betrayed his country, and took his promised 
place in the British army, but his new compan- 
ions all hated and despised him as a spy. 
Andre was tried, and though Clinton did all he 
could to get him released, Washington ordered 
him to be hanged ; and this disgraceful death 
he suffered nobly. Many people have pitied 
Andre and thought his fate too hard, but the 
times were hard and Washington could not af- 
ford half-measures. Andrfe suffered no worse 
fate than did the American patriot, Nathan 
Hale, at the hands of the British when caught 
as a spy ; and Hale's mission was less disastrous 
to the British cause than that of Andre would 
have proved to the Americans had he been 
successful. 

In the south, meanwhile, the patriots under 
Morgan had won a very important victory over 



132 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Cornwallis, depriving him of a fifth of his 
force; but CornwaUis determined to be re- 
venged, and, hearing that Morgan was march- 
ing to Virginia, he gathered more troops to- 
gether, and hastened after him. Morgan knew 
his army was not strong enough to resist this 
large force, and that his only chance lay in 
flight, so he hurried on as rapidly as he could 
and crossed the falls of the Catawba before 
night came on ; three hours later CornwaUis ar- 
rived, but it was too dark for him to cross, and 
he encamped on the bank. During the night a 
heavy rain fell, swelling the river and making it 
very difficult for CornwaUis to get his men 
across. This gave Morgan a start, and on he 
went, his wearied men marching bravely and 
steadfastly. CornwaUis drew nearer and nearer, 
and when on the third day the Americans 
reached another river, and were wading through 
it, the enemy appeared on the bank, and seized 
some of their baggage. But again darkness 
prevented the British from following, and again 
they were delayed by the rising of the river. 
These delays gave Morgan another long start, 
and five days afterwards the patriot army, hav- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 133 

ing marched without resting for twenty-four 
hours, reached the further bank of the river 
Dan in safety, just as the British appeared on 
the opposite shore. This time Cornwallis gave 
up the useless chase, and sullenly returned to 
Hillsborough. Green now took command of 
the patriot army, and having collected more 
troops, returned to the South and fought three 
battles with the British, one after another, in the 
last of which he was victorious. 

Cornwallis now set out to join Clinton at New 
York, hearing that Washington intended to be- 
siege that city ; but Washington resolved to cut 
him off before he could get there, and leaving 
New York, went to meet him with a large army 
of French and Americans. Cornwallis, with his 
troops, took refuge in a fort, and the patriots 
planting their cannon round it, began to pour 
their shot upon him night and day, till the walls 
were battered down and he and all his men were 
obliged to surrender. This second loss of a 
whole army took away the last hope of the 
British, and they determined that an end should 
be put to the ruinous war. A meeting was held 
in Paris, and in September, 1 783, a treaty wag 



134 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

signed between the two countries, by which 
England completely acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of the United States of America. All 
the British troops left the country, the patriot 
army was disbanded, and General Washington, 
the beloved saviour of his country, retired for a 
nobly-earned rest to his peaceful, happy home 
at Mount Vernon. 



CHAPTER VII 

The joy of our people in their newly won 
freedom was deep and lasting. Heavy though 
the losses of the long struggle had been, leaving 
them sadly in want of money, their trade spoilt, 
and their property destroyed, no one grumbled 
or mourned, but all set cheerfully to work to re- 
pair the fortunes of their beloved country. The 
chief men in the land gathered themselves to- 
gether to make out the best plan of government 
possible. For four months they talked it over 
with closed doors, and at the end of that time 
they brought out the scheme they had made, 
and placed it before the willing people. It was 
as follows: — the government was to be in the 
hands of the Congress, which was to consist of a 
Senate and a House of Representatives. The 
Senate was to be composed of Senators, two 
from each State. The members of the House 
of Representatives were to be chosen by the peo- 
ple, one to every thirty thousand inhabitants. 
'35 



136 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

At the head of Congress was the President, and 
under him was the Vice-President, both of whom 
were to be chosen by the people once in every 
four years. The President was also helped by 
the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of 
State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the 
Navy, and the Secretary of the Interior. With 
one voice the people chose George Washington, 
''First in peace, first in war, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen," as the first Presi- 
dent of the United States, and John Adams was 
elected Vice-President. On the 4th of March, 
1789, the new government, or, as it was called, 
the Constitution of the United States, came into 
force. The first thing to be done was to get 
enough money to support the government, and 
to pay off the debts that had been made in the 
war. This was the duty of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was 
a very clever and popular man. When he was 
only fifteen, and still at school, he wrote such a 
clever essay on a hurricane that his father, a poor 
Scotchman, who had thought of making him a 
clerk in some office, scraped together all the 
money he could and sent him to King's College, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 137 

There he was beginning to make his mark when 
the war broke out, and he took up arms for his 
country, fighting so bravely that men called him 
'' the little lion." Washington took a fancy to 
him, and made him his secretary, and he went 
on steadily rising till, when the Constitution was 
formed, he took a leading part in it, and became 
Secretary of the Treasury. In his careful hands 
the money affairs of the Government soon be- 
came orderly ; he levied some easy taxes, grad- 
ually worked off the heavy debts, and put mat- 
ters on a prosperous footing. The Secretary of 
State was Thomas Jefferson, a hard worker in 
the cause of Liberty, who had drawn up the 
Declaration of Independence. Under the new 
government, and with the noble and well -be- 
loved Washington as President, the prospects of 
the nation grew bright, and when the President 
made a tour through the country the people 
could not do enough to show how much they 
loved and honored him. 

One of the taxes Hamilton levied on the 
country was a tax on spirits, which caused some 
discontent in Pennsylvania, where a body of 
discontented men resisted it. Washington, who 



138 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

considered himself bound by the most solemn 
vows to see that the laws were faithfully obeyed, 
called out the militia of the State to put down 
the rising, and under General Lee a large band 
marched against the rebels, who at once laid 
down their arms ; their leaders were seized, but 
after a trial were all pardoned ; an act of mercy 
which made the people love and respect their 
President even more. 

In 1 790, there was a good deal of trouble with 
the Indians on the western frontier ; more than 
one general who was sent to subdue them had 
to confess himself defeated, and daily they 
grew bolder and more daring. But at last in 
one great battle their strength was broken, and 
they fled in dismay. Many of their houses and 
corn-fields were destroyed, and forts built on the 
ground where they had stood ; and with those 
who still remained in the country a treaty was 
made which was long and faithfully kept, and 
gave peace and security to the whites who lived 
on the frontier. 

In 1792, Kentucky was admitted to the Union, 
/. e.y became one of the United States. Long 
after the other States were settled it had been 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 139 

one of the hunting grounds of the Indians, and 
Colonel Boone was the first to explore the 
country. All the companions of his journey 
were killed by the Indians, and alone he re- 
mained in the wilderness for two years. Chance 
then gave him an opportunity of escaping, but 
he soon after returned, bringing with him a 
number of would-be colonists, who made clear- 
ings in the forest, and began the first settlement, 
which after a time grew to quite a large size. 

France was now undergoing a terrible strug- 
gle ; the people had risen up and put the King 
and Queen, and hundreds of the nobility and 
clergy to death on the scaffold, thus bringing 
down upon themselves the wrath of other Euro- 
pean nations. In this hour of their need the 
French, remembering how they had helped 
America, looked to her for help, and in 1793 
sent over a representative; but he, taking ad- 
vantage of the kindness with which he was re- 
ceived, sent out privateers from Charleston to 
capture the vessels of any nations who were 
enemies to France, though they were at peace 
with the United States. Several British ships 
were captured in this way, and the British min- 



I40 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

ister complained to Washington, who ordered 
the sending out of the privateers to be stopped, 
but not before the matter had made England 
feel aggrieved. France, too, was angry with 
America for not joining her in her European 
wars, and in revenge sent out her privateers to 
seize American merchant ships, and our people 
sent over a representative to try and settle the 
matter in friendly fashion. 

George Washington, after having twice been 
President, and through eight hard-working years 
skilfully guided his countrymen till they were 
well on the way to prosperity, now determined 
to retire from public life and spend the rest of 
his days in peace at Mount Vernon ; but before 
he left them he published a farewell address to 
the people he loved so well and had served so 
faithfully, telling them of his pride in them, 
urging them to go on as they had begun, and 
ending up with a solemn warning to beware of 
that most deadly of all dangers, quarreling 
among themselves ; and then the greatest states- 
man and hero of the age, amidst the blessings 
of his grateful countrymen, retired to Mount 
Vernon. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 141 

John Adams, one of America's chief patriots, 
was now made President, and he had hardly 
entered upon his duties when bad news came 
from France. The French refused to receive 
the representative whom America had sent over, 
and would listen to no friendly proposals until 
they received a large sum of money. This of 
course America would not give them, and war 
was declared. All eyes now turned to Mount 
Vernon, and the people begged Washington to 
come forth and lead them to victory as he had 
so often done before. He did not fail them, 
and once more took his place at the head of the 
army. Happily, however, a fight at sea in 
which America captured some French ships 
settled the matter, and a treaty was made be- 
tween the two countries. But all joy at this 
peaceful ending was swallowed up in grief at 
the great loss which now befell our country. 
Washington, the father of the nation, died on 
the 14th of December, 1799, after an illness of 
only one day. Throughout the whole land 
there was mourning and sorrow. " Our country 
mourns a father. The Almighty disposer of 
human events has taken from us our greatest 



142 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

benefactor and ornament," so spoke the Senate. 
Funeral services were held in each town and 
village, and every mark of respect was paid to 
the memory of their beloved leader. A city 
was laid out near Mount Vernon, and called 
after him, and became the capital of the United 
States and the seat of Congress. Shortly after 
the great President's death a census was taken, 
which showed that in four years the people had 
increased in number by nearly 1,400,000, and 
that the revenue, or income of the government 
from taxes, etc., was nearly three times as 
much; a more rapid advance in prosperity 
than has ever been known in history. The 
country, too, was growing larger, and Tennessee 
had been added to the Union. 

In 1 80 1, Thomas Jefferson became President. 
The eight years during which he ruled the 
United States, for he was reelected in 1805, 
were years of great prosperity and growing 
power. In 1803, the vast and important State 
of Louisiana, through which runs one of the no- 
blest rivers in the world, was bought from 
France for fifteen million dollars. And in the 
same year a war, which added much to the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 143 

fame of American arms, was carried on with the 
Dey of Algiers. For some years the Dey had 
received money from American merchants for 
allowing them to trade with his ports, but in- 
stead of protecting them, he seized a frigate 
which had gone aground, and sold the crew as 
slaves. But America would not tamely submit 
to such an insult, and Lieutenant Decatur, a 
high-spirited young officer, determined to re- 
capture the vessel. Obtaining permission to 
make the attempt from his commanding officer, 
he set out from Syracuse in a small schooner 
with seventy-six men, and sailing into the harbor 
of Tripoli under cover of night, came up along- 
side the frigate. He sprang on board followed by 
his men, and, sword in hand, rushed upon the 
sleeping enemy, of whom he made short work, 
killing many and driving others into the sea. 
The noise of the fighting attracted the notice of 
the rest of the enemy's fleet, and Decatur, see- 
ing he had no chance of getting away with his 
prize, set fire to her, and escaped on his 
schooner, without having lost a single man. 
For this gallant action he was made a post- 
captain. In 1804, a large American fleet under 



144 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Commodore Preble bombarded Tripoli, reduced 
it to subjection, and the frightened Dey made 
peace with the United States. Preble added 
much glory to American seamanship. 

Just about this time America lost another of 
her patriots. Hamilton, who had done so nmch 
for her prosperity, was mortally wounded in a 
duel, which had been thrust upon him by Aaron 
Burr, a man who had been the jealous rival of 
his life. The whole nation mourned for Ham- 
ilton, and Burr was forced to fly, with the stain 
of murder on his name. He spent some years 
in exile, and again returned to the scenes of his 
early life. After a mad scheme he had formed 
for making himself the Emperor of Mexico, he 
died obscurely in New York. 

The strife between England and France still 
continued, and England, who in order to man 
her large fleets, used to seize her subjects by 
force and compel them to serve as sailors, 
claimed the right to search for her men on the 
vessels of other nations, the treatment of Eng- 
lish sailors being so harsh in those days that 
many preferred to sail under other flags ; and 
very often, under pretense of taking her own 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 145 

subjects, she seized citizens of the United States 
and made them serve in her navy. In vain our 
people protested ; England upheld her right of 
search and capture, and even on one occasion, 
fired upon an American ship, killing and wound- 
ing several of her men, and carrying off others 
to man her own decks. This outrage caused 
great indignation in America, and Jefferson for- 
bade all British ships of war to enter the harbors 
of the United States. But still American mer- 
chants could not trade in safety, as Great 
Britain issued a decree called ''Orders in 
Council," forbidding any country to trade with 
France except on payment of a tax to her, and 
Bonaparte, the Emperor of the French, retorted 
by declaring that any ships which did pay such 
a tax would be captured by his subjects. Jef- 
ferson, meantime, refused to trade with either 
France or England until these decrees were put 
aside. The French gave in, and trade was re- 
sumed with that country, but England was ob- 
stinate, and, in order to prevent America from 
trading with France, she stationed ships of war be- 
fore the harbors of the United States, and seized 
any ships that ventured out, many falling into her 



146 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

hands; indeed, since 1803, England had cap- 
tured about nine hundred American vessels. 
The patience of our people was now at an end ; 
Madison, who had succeeded Jefferson as Presi- 
dent, called Congress together, and suggested 
that preparations should be made for war, and 
on the I St of June, 181 1, war was declared 
against Great Britain. Henry Dearborn, of 
Massachusetts, was appointed commander-in- 
chief; he was a brave and gallant soldier, and 
had fought in the battle of Bunker's Hill and 
served with Arnold against Quebec. For a 
long time he had been Secretary of War, win- 
ning golden opinions from all. 

In July, an expedition was sent against Can- 
ada, but General Hull, who was in command of 
it, believed his force to be too weak to compete 
with the enemy, and surrendered to the British 
amid the rage and even tears of his soldiers. 
He was tried for unworthy and cowardly con- 
duct, and his name was for a time struck off 
the rolls of the army. But later inquiry has re- 
stored his good name as a faithful soldier wlio 
acted in accordance with his judgment in not 
sacrificing his men against overpowering force. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 147 

There were two other expeditions into Can- 
ada, but they were both failures, and when the 
campaign of 181 2 came to an end, the army in 
the north had done nothing, to the deep disap- 
pointment of the nation. 

But on the ocean the American arms had 
gained a rich harvest of victory and glory. On 
the 19th of August a series of naval victories 
began, and frigate after frigate was captured by 
the American ships. The American privateers, 
too, captured five hundred British merchantmen 
in the first seven months of the war. 

Very early in 181 3, twenty more regiments 
were added to the army, and a number of new 
ships of war were ready ; and so eager were the 
people for the struggle, that instead of waiting 
till the spring, they began the campaign in the 
winter. Bravely and steadily they fought 
against large forces of British and Indians, but 
again and again they were driven back, till the 
Indians, growing tired, deserted their allies, and 
then the British retreated. 

General Pike, a hardy soldier who had been 
born in a camp, now attacked York on Lake 
Ontario, with a body of troops. They were 



148 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

met on the water's edge by the British, but they 
drove them back and, pressing forward, were 
entering the fort, when suddenly a great powder 
magazine blew up with a tremendous explosion, 
hurling upon them a shower of stones and 
timber. Many were killed, and their gallant 
commander received a mortal wound, but urged 
on by him, they pressed forward still, and 
gained possession of the town. The flag which 
had waved over the fort was carried to the dying 
Pike; at his desire it was placed under his 
head, and with a smile of triumph on his lips, 
he died. Fort George, at the head of the lake, 
also fell into the hands of our people, but after 
that the tide of victory turned, and twice they 
were driven back. 

On the seas fighting still continued, and in 
February, America gained her sixth successive 
naval victory. Later on the British ship Shan- 
non was cruising about near Boston at the time, 
and her commander sent a challenge to Lau- 
rence who commanded the "Chesapeake," 
then anchored at Boston. The '^Chesapeake" 
was just then in bad condition to fight, she had 
paid off a goodly number of her men ^ind sey- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 149 

eral of the crew remaining were in a state of 
half mutiny. But her daring young commander 
met the enemy's challenge. When the "Shan- 
non ' ' opened fire he returned it with vigor. In a 
very few minutes every officer on the " Chesa- 
peake ' ' was either killed or wounded ; the 
brave young commander received a mortal 
wound, and as he was carried below he gave 
his last order "Don't give up the ship; " but 
it was useless to continue the struggle and the 
crew unwillingly gave themselves up. 

On Lake Erie a fleet was now ready which, 
under Commander Perry, met the British fleet 
on the loth of September. Perry's ship was 
called the "Laurence," and on the flag were 
written the words of the dying Laurence 
" Don't give up the ship " and he led the way 
amidst the cheers of all the other American 
vessels. Desperate was the fight, but at four 
o'clock the brave Perry sent a short note to 
General Harrison who was anxiously waiting on 
the shore, "We have met the enemy and they 
are ours." Harrison immediately hastened for- 
ward after the retreating British, and obtained a 
complete victory over them near the river 



150 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Thames; Detroit too fell into his hands, and 
thus brilliantly ended up the campaign of 
1813. 

The Indians in the South took advantage of 
the absence of the troops at the war to give a 
good deal of trouble, but they were soon 
crushed by a few regiments who were hastily 
spared to put them down. 

The chief battle in the campaign of 1814 
was the battle of Bridgwater, which began be- 
fore sunset, and went on till midnight. It was 
I fought near the cataract of Niagara, the noise 
j of whose rushing waters could not be heard for 
the thunder of the guns. The British placed their 
cannon in a commanding position on a little hill 
and poured down a heavy fire upon our people. 
" Can you storm that battery? " said the general 
in command to one of his captains; "I'll try, 
sir," was the answer, and with a cheering shout 
to his men, who pressed eagerly after him, the 
young officer steadily ascended the hill, and, 
under the very fire of the cannon, drove back 
the enemy, and seizing the guns turned them 
upon the British. In vain the enemy tried to 
rescue them, and fiercely they fought, but they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 151 

were finally driven from the hill leaving the 
American army in possession of the field. 

Again too, were the Americans successful at 
Plattsburg, putting to rapid flight a large force 
of the British. 

In August, the British proceeded to attack 
Washington, both by sea and land, and the 
American general in command, who had very 
few troops at his disposal, thought it wisest to 
retreat, leaving Washington almost deserted. 
The enemy, meeting with no opposition, entered 
the town and an hour afterwards all the chief 
buildings were in a blaze, and many valuable 
libraries and works of art were destroyed by the 
flames. Having done all the mischief they 
could the British left the city, and set sail for 
Baltimore, meaning to treat it in the same way, 
but they were met by such a determined resist- 
ance, that the attack was given up, and the 
troops retreated southwards. 

Early in December, while our soldiers were 
resting in their winter quarters, news reached 
them that the British were getting ready a large 
force to march against New Orleans, and Gen- 
eral Jackson, one of the bravest of the Ameri- 



152 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

can commanders, was instantly sent off to that 
city, with as many troops as he could get to- 
gether at such short notice. He found all the 
citizens in a state of confusion and alarm, no one 
knowing what to do, or how to prepare to resist the 
expected enemy. Jackson at once took matters 
into his own skilled hands ; all who could wield 
a spade or carry a musket were set to work, and 
when the enemy appeared a month later strong 
fortifications had been built, behind which Jack- 
son's men were posted to receive them. Gen- 
eral Pakenham, the hero of many a European 
battle-field, who led the British, paused when 
he saw the strength of the lines prepared to 
meet him, and waited a few days to rest and 
refresh his troops. On the 8th of January, he 
made ready, and his troops moved forward for 
the attack. Our soldiers kept perfectly still 
until the British were quite close to them, and 
then suddenly put their lighted matches to the 
cannon, and a fierce fire burst forth, killing the 
British by hundreds ; while our men behind the 
cannon kept up a continual fire with their rifles, 
and as they had been trained to shoot from 
their childhood, few escaped them, and the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 153 

plain was soon covered with dead and wounded. 
Twice the British fell back, and twice they ral- 
lied, but when the last of their three generals 
fell to the ground mortally wounded they fled 
in disorder to their camp. In little more than 
an hour two thousand three hundred and sixty men 
were killed wounded or missing on the British 
side, while Jackson's loss, all told, was but seventy- 
one men. It was the most complete defeat ever 
inflicted on the British army on American soil. 
This terrible loss put to flight the last hope of the 
British, and they made a treaty of peace, taking 
back all their demands and putting aside the 
*' Orders in Council " ; and amid the rejoicing 
of the nation the war came to a victorious end. 

There was some trouble soon after with the 
Dey of Algiers, who broke the treaty he had 
made with the United States, but a fleet under 
his old enemy, Decatur, reduced him to sub- 
mission, and then America was at peace both at 
home and abroad. 

In 181 7, President Madison was succeeded by 
James Monroe, who became famous as the au- 
thor of what is called the '' Monroe Doctrine," 
which forbade any European nation to make 



154 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

colonies of any kind on American soil. He 
was an honest, able man, and in the eight years 
during which he ruled the United States the 
country recovered from the evil effects of the 
war, and began to flourish. Numbers of people 
left the Atlantic States and went westward, and 
so rapid was the increase of the population that 
within ten years five new States were added to 
the Union ; Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Ala- 
bama and Maine. In 1819, Florida was ceded 
to the United States by Spain, who in 1564, 
had founded the town of St. Augustine, the 
oldest town in North America. In 1821, Mis- 
souri became the twenty-fourth State of the 
Union. 

In 1825, John Quincy Adams, son of the 
famous John Adams, became President ; in his 
time peace remained unbroken and the pros- 
perity of the country increased. On July 5th, 
1826, the Jubilee of American Independence 
was celebrated, and on the same day died John 
Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and 
third Presidents of the United States, both of 
whom had helped to draw up the Declaration of 
Independence. Adams was succeeded by Gen- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 155 

eral Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, who, 
after ruling for two terms, was followed by 
Martin Van Buren. The peace that reigned in 
the land was seldom broken, except by an In- 
dian rising now and again. Van Buren was 
followed by General Harrison, who, however, 
died before a month had passed by, and was 
replaced by John Tyler of Virginia. In his 
time the boundary of Canada which had long 
been the occasion of dispute, was settled with 
England, and trade was opened with China. 
In 1832, the State of Iowa was bought by the 
United States from the Sioux, one of the largest 
and most powerful of the Indian tribes, and to- 
gether with Florida it was added to the Union. 
Michigan had joined some time before. 

In 1845, James K. Polk became President, 
and to convey the news of his election the tele- 
graph, which had just been invented, was first 
used. In the same year James Smithson, a 
generous Englishman, left half a million of dol- 
lars to the United States, for the foundation of 
a college at Washington, which was called the 
Smithsonian Institute. 

In the same year, the large country of Texas 



156 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

was added to the Union, but Mexico claimed it 
as hers, and as the United States would not give 
it up, war was declared, and in March, General 
Zachary Taylor went at the head of the United 
States troops to open the campaign. He 
reached the mouth of the Rio Grande at the 
end of the month, and, after building a fort 
there, went on to Point Isabel. On the way 
thither he met with a Mexican force, which he 
entirely defeated. Pressing forward steadily 
into the heart of the country he met another 
large Mexican force, and treated them in the 
same way as he had done their comrades. The 
city of Matamoras fell into his hands, and still 
he advanced, and fought a battle at Walnut 
Springs, three miles from Monterey, which 
lasted for four days, and ended in utter defeat 
to the Mexicans. As he pursued his triumphant 
march through the country, he left garrisons in 
the various towns that fell into his hands, thus 
reducing the size of his army ; but he cared lit- 
tle for this, and when he heard that a Mexican 
force of more than four times the size of his 
own was coming against him, he took up a posi- 
tion at Buena Vista, and awaited it in perfect 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 157 

calm. In the early dawn of an October morn- 
ing the enemy came into sight, and the battle 
began. Long and desperate it was, but the sun 
went down on the flight of the Mexicans from 
the field. This victory gave the United States 
the frontier. General Scott replaced General 
Taylor, and on the 13th of March began an 
equally brilliant campaign with the capture of 
Vera Cruz. To reach the capital was his aim ; 
between him and it was a long range of moun- 
tains where the Mexican general was awaiting 
him, securely entrenched. But on went Scott, 
and took height after height, driving the Mexi- 
cans before him in a hurried, scattered flight. 
The whole march was one long series of tri- 
umphs, and on the 13th of September, the Stars 
and Stripes floated above the walls of the palace 
in the ancient capital of Mexico. This ended 
the war, and peace was made in February, 1848, 
Mexico giving up not only all claim to Texas 
but also New Mexico, Utah, and California to 
the United States. While the conquests de- 
scribed were being made by Generals Taylor 
and Scott Colonel Stephen W. Kearney had 
gone by the old South trail across the mountains 



158 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

of what is now Colorado, thence over the Rio 
Grande Valley, and after declaring the whole 
of Mexico and the territories adjacent to it, the 
property of the United States, he started to 
seize California. On arriving there he found 
Stockton, Fremont and other Americans, who 
had been working for the same purpose, and 
together their combined efforts completed the 
conquest of California. A year later gold was 
discovered, and in 1849 began the great rush of 
people from all the Eastern states to the gold 
fields of California. The great struggle as to 
whether California would be a free or a slave 
state was decided in 1850, when it entered the 
Union as a free state. 

On the 23d of February, 1848, John Quincy 
Adams, who for more than sixty years had faith- 
fully served his country, was suddenly struck 
with paralysis during a debate in the House of 
Representatives. He was carried to the Speak- 
er's room in the Capitol, where he breathed his 
last, and once more his countrymen had to 
mourn the loss of one of their truest patriots. 

In May, Wisconsin was purchased from the 
Indians and added to the Union. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 159 

In 1849, General Zachary Taylor became 
President, but he died before the end of the 
year, and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, 
who, in his turn, was succeeded by General 
Franklin Pierce, and the years went by with few 
events to break the advancing prosperity of the 
nation. 



CHAPTER VIII 

It was in the time of President Buchanan, 

who succeeded President Pierce, that the danger 

against which Washington had solemnly warned 

his countrymen, began to overshadow the land. 

Long ago it had hovered like a tiny cloud over 

the happiness of the nation ; year by year it had 

grown blacker and bigger, till at last the States 

broke into open discord. They were divided 

into two parties, the South who upheld slavery, 

and the North who opposed it. The Southern 

States abound in vast tracts of swamp and 

marsh-land, on which flourish huge plantations 

of cotton, rice and sugar. These plantations 

brought wealth in abundance to their owners, 

who lived like princes in great mansions, amid 

oak and magnolia groves, avenues of palms and 

stately gardens ; lords of hundreds of slaves, 

who were descended from those brought by the 

planters of Barbadoes into the land more than a 

hundred years ago. Very different was the life 
i6o 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES i6i 

of the people in the north j they, too, were rich, 
but their wealth came from trading ; they had 
no need of slaves. Those they had owned in 
the early days of the colonies they had got rid 
of either by selling them to the South or 
giving them their freedom; and they looked 
with a disapproving eye on the slave trade in 
the Southern States. The representatives of the 
two parties struggled together in Congress, each 
trying to win over to their side all the new 
States which joined the Union. The South 
wished to extend slavery into the New States 
and Territories. In 1820 some peacemaker sug- 
gested the ''Missouri Compromise" which 
declared that slavery was not to exist in any 
States north of a certain latitude, whether they 
were now in the Union, or joined it in the 
future. In 1854, however, this act was set 
aside, and the quarreling of the two parties 
over the new States became worse than ever. In 
1859, a brave and earnest young man, named 
John Brown, who looked with horror on the 
evils of the slave trade, made a desperate at- 
tempt to free the negroes of Virginia, by an at- 
tack on Harper's Ferry ; but it cost him his life, 



1 62 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

and led to nothing, except an even deeper 
hatred between the North and South ; moderate 
people in both sections deplored this attempt 
made by Brown. In November, i860, Abra- 
ham Lincoln was elected President. This 
brought matters to a crisis; as though he did 
not suggest that slavery should be entirely 
done away with, yet he wanted to limit it. 
Lincoln was a remarkable man. He was born 
in 1809 in the Kentucky forests, and by the 
flickering firelight in his father's humble cabin 
the little boy read the Life of George Wash- 
ington, and made up his mind that he too 
would be great. He learned anything that any 
one would teach him, and read every book he 
could find, and by and by when he got a little 
older he launched his canoe on the river and 
went to seek his fortune. Many were the trades 
he followed, with each one rising a little higher. 
He was a boatman, a storekeeper, a postmaster, 
a surveyor, a captain of volunteers in one of the 
Indian wars, and so on, until he became the 
first lawyer in his State, a member of Congress, 
and finally President ; and through it all he had 
walked so honestly and purely among his neigh- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 163 

bors, that his very name passed into a proverb 
of fair-dealing. He was very tall, and strong ; 
his smile was bright and kind, and his look 
straightforward and honest. One of his maxims 
was that every man has the right ''to eat the 
bread, without leave of any one else, which his 
own hand earns." The Southerners knew they 
could not hope to win over such a man to their 
side, and, directly the result of the election be- 
came known, the men of South Carolina held a 
meeting, and openly declared theif intention of 
seceding, or leaving the Union, and having a 
government of their own. Their example was 
followed by all the other slave States, one after 
another, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, 
Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, 
Arkansas and Virginia, and on the 4th of Feb- 
ruary, 1 86 1, the new government was formed 
under the title of the Confederate States of 
America. Mr. Jefferson Davis, a strong and reso- 
lute man, well fitted for the difficult post he had 
to fill, was chosen President, and Richmond in 
Virginia became the capital, and seat of Congress. 
The first thing the Southerners did when they 
seceded was to try and seize all the forts, arse- 



1 64 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

nals and navy-yards in the South, whether they 
were rightly their property or not, and the forts 
at Charleston, Pinckney, Moultrie and Sumter, 
they were most anxious to possess. Major An- 
derson was in command of these forts, and held 
Moultrie with only sixty-nine men, and as 
Buchanan, who did not give up the President- 
ship till March, refused to send him any help, 
he secretly removed all his men to Sumter, 
which was by far the strongest of the forts and 
in the best position. The Southerners at once 
seized all the other forts, and large gangs of 
slaves were set to work to raise batteries round 
Anderson's stronghold. While this was going 
on Lincoln came into power, and in his opening 
speech he stated that he did not intend to inter- 
fere with slavery, but only to see that the laws 
were faithfully observed ; that all acts of vio- 
lence against the Union would be considered as 
rebellion ; but, except to defend itself and its 
rights, the Union would use no force, and that 
in the hands of the people themselves lay the 
question of civil war ; and he ended up with a 
hope that peace and good-will would continue 
among them. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 165 

When Anderson heard of the change in Presi- 
dents he sent a note to Lincoln, telling him that 
he could only hold out a little while longer, and 
Lincoln sent off men to relieve him ; but before 
they could arrive, Beauregard, a Confederate 
general, came to Charleston to take command, 
and called on Anderson to surrender, which he 
refused to do. Beauregard waited a few days, 
and then warned Anderson that unless he gave 
in, firing would begin in an hour's time. But 
Anderson paid no heed, and at half-past four one 
morning all the batteries round Sumter began 
the bombardment of the fort. Towards one 
o'clock the garrison saw the relief ships, which 
unfortunately, however, could not get into the 
harbor on account of the enemy ; but Anderson 
continued to hold out until the second day, 
when the barracks belonging to the fort caught 
fire, all the powder had to be thrown into the 
sea, and then the faithful man was obliged to 
haul down the Union flag and give in. This 
was the beginning of the Civil War, and when 
Lincoln heard the news he sent forth a procla- 
mation calling on all loyal citizens to come to 
the aid of the Union. All party feeling was put 



i66 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

an end to, and there were now but two rallying 
points ; the camps of the South to fight against 
the Union, and the camps of the North to de- 
fend it. Everywhere in the North the enlist- 
ment of volunteers began, and subscriptions 
poured in ; more than double the number of 
men required offered their services, and in forty- 
eight hours various armed companies were ready. 
Maryland wavered between the two parties ; 
for a time the Confederates seemed to have won 
it over, and cut all railroad and telegraph com- 
munications with the North ; they also seized 
the Gosport navy-yard, one of the chief naval 
stations in the country, where supplies and a 
number of ships had been stored ; but the few 
officers who had charge of it, rather than let 
such valuable property fall into Confederate 
hands, burnt to ashes the yard, and stores, and 
all the ships, except one called the " Merrimac," 
which they sank. Fear now began to be felt at 
Washington, which, as the chief town in Colum- 
bia, lies between Virginia and Maryland. Ru- 
mors came of great Confederate armies collect- 
ing in the neighboring States, and all business 
ceased. But Unionist troops, sent by General 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 167 

Scott, the commander-in-chief, were on their 
way from the North, and when they arrived in 
warlike array, and set to work to fortify the 
town, the citizens felt secure again. But Balti- 
more was still rebellious; and when the 6th 
Massachusetts Regiment, the first to respond to the 
call of war, marched unsuspiciously into Baltimore 
it was fired upon by a Rebel mob and several of 
our soldiers were killed. This roused a fury of re- 
sentment at the North ; others quickly followed 
and took possession of the town, thus destroying 
the Confederate power in Maryland. 

Missouri also wavered. The governor was 
in favor of the Confederates, and General Scott 
sent a trustworthy young captain with a body of 
troops to put him down. A battle was fought 
at Boonville, in which the Confederates were de- 
feated; the governor fled, and Missouri, too, 
was safe to the Union. 

Twenty-two States now remained in the 
Union with twenty-two million people; while 
the Confederates had only eleven States with 
nine million people, of whom three and a half 
million were slaves, but the slaves were very 
faithful and never betrayed their trust; they 



i68 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

were also very useful in building fortifications 
and batteries, and they raised the crops on which 
the South lived during the whole war. The 
Southerners, although they were so few in num- 
ber, were more warlike than the Unionists; 
whereas Northern young men had turned to 
business pursuits, those of the South had for gen- 
erations entered the army or navy, and a larger 
number of trained officers were on their side. 
Besides, they were fighting for what they thought 
their freedom, and on their own ground. They 
had some very good generals, too; Joseph E. 
Johnston, a gallant and clever soldier, and Robert 
E. Lee, who took command of the forces in Vir- 
ginia, a noble Christian soldier and gentleman 
of great strength and courage, who had already 
won great fame in the Mexican war. Virginia 
was the chief seat of the war, as Richmond, the 
Confederate capital, was near the frontier, and 
Washington was on the boundary line, and the 
chief object of both parties was to protect their 
own capital, and try and capture the capital of 
the other. Richmond was protected on the 
north and east by the Chickahominy, a river 
with rapid currents, and surrounded with 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 169 

marshes ; while Washington could easily be ap- 
proached by marching down the Shenandoah 
Valley. General Beauregard, the captor of Fort 
Sumter, was ordered to guard Richmond and to 
threaten Washington, and he took up a position 
on a hill at Manassas, near the stream of Bull 
Run. There the Unionists determined to attack 
him, and, under General McDowell, they crossed 
Bull Run on Sunday morning, July 21, and 
charged upon Beauregard and his troops. At 
first some of the Confederates seemed about to 
retreat, but their colonel cheered them on, 
pointing out a brigade which was standing im- 
movable under a heavy fire. '' Look, ' ' he cried, 
*'at Jackson. There he stands like a stone 
wall; " and ever after the name of ''Stonewall 
Jackson " clung to the gallant young officer, 
who soon took a high place among the Con- 
federate generals. This turned the tide of 
battle, and though McDowell tried again and 
again to storm the hill on which Beauregard 
was stationed, he was always driven back, till 
the Unionists retreated, leaving the Confeder- 
ates victors of the battle of Bull Run. 

General Scott was an old man, and he felt he 



I70 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

had not the power to serve his country as he 
longed to do ; a younger man was needed, and, 
beUeving G. B. McClellan to be the one most 
fitted, he summoned him to Washington, and 
gave him the command of the whole Union 
army. McClellan had already gained a victory 
over the Confederates in West Virginia. He 
was a strong, active, energetic man with a thor- 
ough knowledge of a soldier's duties, and his 
men adored him. His one great defect had not 
yet appeared, and great hopes were formed of 
what he would do for the Unionist cause. The 
troops were soon busy from morning till night, 
drilling, and practicing, and learning all that 
was necessary, and day by day volunteers poured 
in. And so the winter went by and the spring 
came, but McClellan made no move. He was 
busy planning a vast expedition right into the 
heart of the enemy's country. It was in this 
that McClellan' s weakness lay ; he wasted time 
in making schemes too great to be carried out, 
while the Confederates took up important posi- 
tions unhindered. 

In other parts of the country the Unionists 
had gained some small victories, but the Con- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 171 

federates did not heed them, so elated were they 
at the success of a great ironclad, the first that 
had ever been brought into action. When the 
Gosport navy-yard fell into their hands, they 
raised the wooden frigate " Merrimac " from her 
resting-place at the bottom of the harbor, and 
rebuilt her, covering her all over with heavy 
iron plates, and fitting her with an iron ram. 
When everything was ready, she came out of 
Norfolk harbor, and made for two Unionist men- 
of-war which were lying at anchor ; they were 
sailing vessels, very good of their kind, and well 
armed and manned, but the ironclad made short 
work of them. With her iron ram she pierced 
their wooden sides, and one after the other they 
sank like stones to the bottom ; the heavy fire 
their crews kept desperately up to the end, 
bounding harmlessly off the iron sides of the 
** Merrimac." Great were the rejoicings of the 
Confederates over this victory, as they thought 
there was not a single Unionist vessel which 
could withstand their iron monster. But they 
were mistaken, for the very next day when the 
*' Merrimac " steamed out of the harbor, confi- 
dently bent on the destruction of the whole 



172 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Union fleet, she was met by a little ironclad 
called the "Monitor," and the Confederates 
opened their eyes, for indeed they had seen noth- 
ing like her before. She had no sides nor bul- 
warks, only an iron-plated deck level with the 
water, on which revolved an iron turret contain- 
ing two great guns, which she pointed at the 
"Merrimac," and though the two vessels fired 
at each other continuously for two hours, neither 
received any injury. 

Depending on the ''Monitor" to keep the 
''Merrimac" at bay, and urged on by the 
President, whose faith in him was so shaken 
that he had now limited his command to that 
part of the Union force called the *' Army of 
the Potomac," McClellan began to carry out 
his great scheme by sending his troops to Fort 
Monroe, intending to march up the Peninsula, 
supported on either side by the Union fleet on 
the York and James rivers, and driving the 
Confederates before him until he reached Rich- 
mond, where he hoped to obtain a great and 
final victory. But it took a long time to con- 
vey the troops to Monroe, and meanwhile 
Ulysses Grant, a young Unionist general of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 173 

great promise, was making himself the hero of 
the hour by victories in the west. He captured 
two important Confederate forts, which com- 
manded the rivers Tennessee and Cumberland, 
and several railway lines, and then took up a 
strong position at Pittsburg Landing on the 
former river. He had only a few troops with 
him, but every day General Buell was expected 
to arrive with a large force, and meantime 
Grant had no thought of any danger, believing 
that the Confederates were crushed by their re- 
cent defeat. He was soon to find out his mis- 
take, however, as General A. S. Johnston, and 
General Beauregard were rapidly and secretly 
collecting a large army, intending to crush 
Grant before Buell could arrive. On the 6th of 
April they advanced upon the Unionists who, 
taken wholly by surprise though they were, yet 
stood their ground gallantly for a long time, re- 
treating at last inch by inch, and fighting des- 
perately the whole day. Elated at their success, 
the Confederates determined to break up the 
whole Unionist army, and pushed on over the 
bloody field of Shiloh from early morning till 
late afternoon, Grant holding out till the last. 



174 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Half an hour before the end of the fight the first 
regiments of Buell's force dimbed the steep 
banks of the river ; but night came on, and it 
was impossible to continue fighting. The Con- 
federates, too, received a sudden check by the 
loss of their brave commander General A. S. 
Johnston, who fell mortally wounded. During 
the night Buell arrived with the rest of his men, 
and in the morning the fight began again; but 
the Confederates, worn out with the fatigues of 
the day before, were unable to stand up before 
the fresh Unionist forces, and soon lost all that 
they had won, and the battle of Shiloh came to 
a close, leaving Grant and his men victors. The 
Confederates retreated to Tupelo, a very health- 
ful place, there to rest and recover, and the 
Unionists moved on down the Mississippi to 
Memphis. Vicksburg only now remained to be 
taken, and then the whole of the Mississippi 
would be in the hands of the Union. 

McClellan had now conveyed his troops to 
Fort Monroe, and began his march up the Pen- 
insula. It was much harder work than he ex- 
pected, as the Confederates had had plenty of 
time to entrench themselves, and he had not 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 175 

nearly so many men as he wanted. He was 
most anxious for McDowell to join him, but 
that commander was busy chasing Stonewall 
Jackson, who was trying to draw him as far 
away from Richmond as possible ; and McClel- 
lan had to do the best he could with his rather 
small force. After taking Norfolk and York- 
town, he pushed on to Richmond, and en- 
camped on the opposite side of the river Chick- 
ahominy some miles below the town. There a 
Confederate force under General Joseph John- 
ston fell upon him, and the battle of Fair Oaks 
was fought, with considerable loss on both sides. 
Directly after this battle McClellan set to work 
to build bridges over the river, and meanwhile 
General Lee arrived, and took command of the 
Confederate army. The first thing he did was 
to send Stuart, one of his cavalry officers, to 
find out all he could about the Unionist forces, 
and the news Stuart brought back was that Mc- 
Clellan had a very weak line of supplies. Now 
a general on his campaigns always looks care- 
fully after his line of supplies, /. e., whether he 
will be able to get supphes of food quickly and 
easily, by boat or rail, from some depot, as he 



176 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

knows that his whole army will perish if sup- 
plies fail. So Stuart's news was hailed with joy 
by the Confederates, and Lee crossed the river 
with his troops to try and get between McClel- 
lan and his depot, Fort Monroe, and coming 
upon a part of the Unionist force, put them to 
flight at the batde of Gaines Mill. McClellan, 
in order to keep his line of supplies, was obliged 
to fall back nearer Fort Monroe, and set out 
with his army for Harrison's Landing on the 
James river, burning behind him the bridges 
he had built with so much trouble. Lee fol- 
lowed rapidly after him, and, overtaking him at 
Glendale, another battle was fought, with little 
result ; and the Union army went on again, and 
took up a very strong position on Malvern Hill, 
which is surrounded by woods and swamps. 
There the Confederates attacked them again, 
but this time without success, and next day the 
Union army arrived safely at Harrison's Land- 
ing ; and thus ended what is known as the 
*' Seven Days' Battles." For a whole week the 
two armies had met and fought every day, and 
though in the last of the battles the Confeder- 
ates had been defeated, they felt themselves 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 177 

victors, as they had forced McClellan to give up 
his great plan of taking Richmond, and retreat 
before them ; and while every one in the North 
was clamoring against McClellan, the people 
of the South vied with each other in heaping 
praises on Lee. 

General Halleck, who was now command- 
er-in-chief of the whole Union army, placed 
General Pope at the head of a body of 
troops called the <'Army of Virginia," and 
ordered him to take up a position where he 
could cover Washington ; and at the same time 
he ordered McClellan to give up all his great 
Peninsula schemes, and join Pope as soon as he 
could. But McClellan only arrived on the last 
day of the campaign, and meanwhile. Pope, who 
had to deal with Jackson at first, and soon after 
with Lee and Jackson together, the two clever- 
est generals in the Confederate army, was totally 
defeated in a series of battles. After the last 
of these, called the second battle of Bull Run, 
he most unwisely retreated, although he knew 
that McClellan was to join him next day, and 
with his fresh forces could probably have 
crushed the Confederates, who were worn out 



178 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

with the continuous fighting. This retreat 
caused Pope's men to lose all confidence in him, 
and knowing himself a failure, he gave up the 
command and went back to Washington; his 
place being taken by McClellan. 

When his army had somewhat recovered from 
the fatigues of the campaign, Lee determined to 
cross the Potomac, and try and get the un- 
decided people of Maryland to join him, and on 
the 4th of September he entered Frederickstown, 
not knowing that McClellan, who had been on 
the watch, was following at a little distance be- 
hind. On arriving at Frederickstown, he 
divided his army into two parts, sending Jack- 
son to take Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry, 
while he went forward with the rest of the troops 
over the mountains, meaning to join Jackson 
again at Sharpsburg. Unfortunately, however, 
he left behind him a copy of his plans which 
fell into the hands of McClellan, who followed 
in instant pursuit, hoping to overtake and crush 
him before he could meet Jackson. The two 
armies came in sight of each other on the 
outskirts of Sharpsburg, on the banks of the 
Antietam, and there on the i6th of September 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 179 

the great battle of the Antietam was fought. 
Again and again the Confederates charged, 
sometimes successfully and sometimes not ; and 
in each encounter both sides lost hundreds of 
men. The most desperate of all the charges, 
in fact the most desperate in the whole war, took 
place in a sunken road, which was bravely held 
by the Confederates till their lines were broken, 
and then the road became a pit from which they 
could not escape from the deadly fire of their 
enemies, and it was soon filled with the dead 
and dying, and to this day is called Bloody 
Lane. Another division crossed the Antietam 
and attacked Sharpsburg, and were on the point 
of taking the city, when Jackson's men, fresh 
from victories at Harper's Ferry and Martins- 
burg, arrived, climbed the hill, and rushed to 
the rescue of their comrades. At night the bat- 
tle ended, leaving Lee victorious, but he had 
lost so many men in the struggle that he had to 
give up all idea of invading Maryland, and 
went back into Virginia. 

On the 2d of January, Lincoln proclaimed 
the freedom of the slaves in the rebel States; 
and about the same time McClellan, in whom 



i8o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the Government had been losing faith for some 
time past, was removed from command, and his 
place taken by Burnside. This new com- 
mander, however, soon proved himself unable 
to stand up against Lee, and was replaced by 
Hooker, who being also beaten by Lee in the great 
battle of Chancellorsville, on the ist of May, 
1863, was, in his turn, replaced by Meade. Lee, 
though a victor, lost many men in this battle, 
and among others one who could never be re- 
placed, the bold and clever Jackson, for whose 
death friends and foes alike mourned. It is but 
fair to McClellan to say here that the faith 
placed in him as a military organizer was well- 
founded. His plan of campaign was prac- 
tically the same as that which was afterwards 
brought to a successful termination by Grant. 
McClellan' s only fault was slowness of move- 
ment ; and this alone cost many precious lives 
while he lingered in camp in malarial districts 
and the men died of fever and other distempers. 
Lee's various victories over the Unionists en- 
couraged him to make another attempt to invade 
the north, and on the 8th of June he started 
down the Shenandoah Valley, capturing various 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES i8i 

places on the way ; but hearing that Meade was 
following him, and fearing to lose his line of 
supplies with Richmond, he turned back and 
prepared to meet the Unionists at Gettysburg, 
hoping in one great battle to crush their strength 
and end the war, of which he was now very 
weary. On the ist of July the battle of Gettys- 
burg began ; fierce was the fighting, and when 
the end of the second day came the Confed- 
erates had driven the Unionists back on to a 
ridge called Cemetery Hill, and closed in on 
them there on every side, except that towards 
Gettysburg. At night the Unionists held a 
council of war, but though they thought the 
chances were against them, they resolved to 
stay and fight it out. All the morning of the 
third day the Confederates were making ready 
for a desperate charge. At one o'clock a signal 
gun was fired, and they rushed forward in a 
magnificent column. They nearly gained the 
top of the ridge, but could not hold it ; Union 
troops were rushing in on all sides; the slaugh- 
ter was terrible, and soon but few remained of 
those who had advanced so gallantly, and those 
few took to their heels and fled. Lee, expecting 



1 82 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to be pursued, gathered together the scattered 
remnants of his army in great haste, and 
marched night and day towards Virginia ; but 
Meade stayed where he was, and on the 14th 
the whole Confederate army was once more on 
Virginia soil, and the second great invasion of 
the North had come to an end. 

Grant rested for a time after the battle of 
Shiloh, and then began to make plans for the 
taking of Vicksburg, the only place on the Mis- 
sissippi still held by the Confederates. On the 
20th of December he sent Sherman, a young 
general who had greatly distinguished himself 
at the battle of Shiloh, with a body of troops, 
down the river to begin operations, promising 
to follow with the rest of the army and support 
him. But the Confederates had been watching 
Grant's movements, and seizing their oppor- 
tunity, they destroyed the railroad for sixty 
miles, cutting off Grant's line of suppHes with 
Washington, and they also burnt a depot where 
he had stored a large amount of food, obliging 
him to fall back on another line of railroad, in- 
stead of following Sherman. Vicksburg lies on 
the slope of a range of hills along the eastern 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 183 

side of the valley of the Mississippi, and for 
miles and miles the whole country round is low, 
marshy land, covered with little streams, inlets 
and bayous. On the 25th of December, Sher- 
man landed twenty miles above Vicksburg, but 
on the hills he found the Confederates drawn up 
strongly to meet him, and they beat him back 
with great loss on to the marsh-lands, and not 
feeling safe there, as at any moment the river 
might rise and overflow his camp, he took to 
the boats and went back up the river. 

On the 17th of January, Grant, whose line of 
supplies was now in order again, set out once 
more to attack Vicksburg. But the difficulties 
even in getting there were very great. For two 
months he tried every way he could think of to 
convey his army across the low lands, and reach 
the hills beyond the city. He spent a large 
amount of labor and time in cutting a great 
canal through the peninsula, but the river rose, 
and in one day the work of weeks was swept 
away. He tried to force an opening through a 
bayou that had once been used for ships, but 
his vessels stuck half way. However, un- 
daunted, he labored on, building bridges and 



i84 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

cutting little canals, and at last on April 30th, 
though still far from Vicksburg, all the troops 
were on firm land, and marching towards the 
city. The Confederates, meanwhile, had been 
making preparations to bar their progress, and 
met them in battle array at Fort Gibson, at 
Raymond, at Champion's Hill, and at Big 
Black; but everywhere the Union arms were 
successful, and Grant pressed steadily on, the 
Confederates flying before him, till eighteen 
days after the battle of Fort Gibson he stood 
before Vicksburg itself. The city is a strong 
one, protected by hills and battlements, and 
Grant's attack, made on the 2 2d of May, fierce 
though it was, failed utterly, and he saw there 
was nothing for it but to besiege the town, and 
wait for the garrison to surrender. Nearly two 
months went by, and Grant heard that General 
Johnston with a large force was hastening to the 
relief of the town, but before he could arrive, 
it had surrendered, and on the 4th of July the 
Union flag waved over the walls. When the 
news reached Johnston he rapidly retreated, 
fearing to meet Grant's victorious forces. The 
whole of the Mississippi was now open to the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 185 

Unionists, and for the first time in two years, 
vessels could pass safely up and down it. 

The next move the Unionists made was to 
try and recover Charleston, but though by sea 
and land, they bombarded it with shot and shell, 
incessantly, through fifty-one long, hot, summer 
days, the Confederates still held Fort Sumter. 

But in other parts of the country the Union 
forces were steadily gaining ground, and the 
Confederates, who had been retreating before 
them, determined to make a firm stand on the 
mountains which border Georgia; and under 
General Bragg they fought with such despera- 
tion in the battle of Chickamauga, that they put 
the Unionists to flight, and had Bragg followed 
up his advantage, he could have completely 
routed the army ; but while he delayed, the 
scattered forces collected at Chattanooga, and 
Grant, who was now commander-in-chief of the 
west, sent troops from all parts to help them 
hold the place. Bragg saw the long lines of 
Unionists going to join their comrades, and 
tried to cut them off, but unsuccessfully, and 
soon a large army was assembled at Chattanooga, 
and went forth to the mountains to drive Bragg 



1 86 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

from his stronghold. On they went, through 
the woods, and up the sides of the mountains, 
sweeping the Confederates before them with 
irresistible force. First they gained the crest of 
Lookout Mountain, then Missionary Ridge, and 
then the Confederates, wildly flying down the 
mountains, burst through the Unionist ranks, 
down to the Chickamauga, and only waiting to 
burn the bridges behind them, fled on till they 
were safe from pursuit on Taylor's Ridge ; and 
the Unionists, satisfied with their victory, went 
back to Chattanooga. 

Early in 1864, Lincoln issued a proclamation 
of pardon to all who would submit to the 
Union, with the exception of the leaders of the 
rebellion ; but the proud Southerners would not 
give in, heavy though their losses had been, and 
the struggle was renewed. 

The Unionists now determined to extend 
their conquests into the heart of Louisiana, and 
obtain command of the Red River, and the 
Confederates prepared to repel them, intending 
to draw them away from their supplies, and 
when they were entangled among the swamps, 
to fall upon, and crush them. The Unionists 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 187 

sailed up the river, until they reached Grand 
Echore where they landed, and began to march 
through the forests towards Shreveport, drag- 
ging their supplies with them. The Confeder- 
ates, under General Taylor, meanwhile re- 
treated, until they reached the open country ; 
there they stopped, and awaited the Unionists, 
and, falling upon them before they were out of 
the wood, utterly routed them. Back through 
the woods the Unionists rushed, leaving their 
baggage behind them. Once they stopped and 
beat back the Confederates, who were coming 
somewhat carelessly after them, and then has- 
tened on again. When they reached the river 
they found that one of the gunboats had been 
blown up, two transports captured, and the 
waters were falling, so that the Admiral feared 
the other boats would go to pieces on the rocks 
above the Grand Falls. After much thought 
they set to work to build a dam across the rocks 
of the falls to raise the water enough to float the 
gunboats ; for a week they labored, night and 
day, and the work was just finished, when the 
river swept through the opening with great 
force, and carried away part of the dam. The 



1 88 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Admiral was in despair -, no persuasion would 
induce the discouraged troops to set to work 
again. There was only one small chance left, 
and that he resolved to risk ; galloping up to 
where the gunboats were lying, he ordered them 
to attempt the passage. One after another, 
with full steam on, they approached the gap in 
the dam where the stream was running fast, and 
plunged in, amidst the breathless silence of the 
troops, and, after a moment of terrible suspense, 
came out safely in the calm water below the 
falls, greeted by the shouts and cheers of the 
whole army, and the expedition returned in 
safety to Alexandria. 

Just about this time a band of cavalry made a 
very brave effort to capture Richmond, mean- 
ing to set the many prisoners free, and seize the 
President and members of the Congress. No 
warning of the coming danger reached Rich- 
mond, and a large number of the Union men 
arrived unhindered, but as they were not strong 
enough to attack without the rest of the troops, 
who missed their way and did not reach the 
city till too late, the attempt ended in nothing. 
Many of the most brilliant achievements of the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 189 

war were performed by the cavalry ; especially 
under command of General Philip H. Sheridan ; 
whose Napoleon-like feats of daring won the 
admiration of the country, and whose influence 
over his men was magnetic and inspiring to the 
highest degree. 

The North now determined to unite its forces 
into two great armies ; one under Grant to at- 
tack Richmond, and the other under Sherman 
to march against Atlanta, the capital of Geor- 
gia. Both sides felt that the crisis of the long 
struggle was approaching, and resolved to put 
forth their utmost strength. Lee, with all the 
men he could collect together, was encamped 
on the south side of the Rapidan, covering 
Richmond and the railway. On the 4th of 
May, 1864, the Unionist army crossed the Rap- 
idan, and plunged into the tangled forests of 
the Wilderness, and on the next day the first of 
the great battles of the Wilderness was fought. 
During the whole day it continued, Lee's army 
forcing the Unionists to fight for very life, and 
preventing their advance on Richmond, With 
the first gleams of light on the following day 
the combat began again, and continued with 



igo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

varying success ; at one time the Unionists had 
it all their own way; then they were driven 
back by Longstreet, one of the bravest of the 
Confederate commanders, who was always to be 
found in the thickest of the fight ; and he was 
following up his success, and leading on his 
troops to a final charge, when a fatal volley was 
fired, and he fell desperately wounded, and was 
carried to the rear. Lee then rushed forward 
to lead the troops in person, but his officers 
would not allow him to risk his life, and the 
line advanced without him, and marching 
through the thick undergrowth, fought desper- 
ately, until darkness put an end to the conflict. 
The third day of battles now began round 
Spottsylvania Court House, which Lee's men 
had seized and held, against all Unionist 
charges, for nineteen days ; at length Grant, 
weary of the struggle, retired to the Chicka- 
hominy, followed by Lee, and on the same spot 
where McClellan had fought two years before, 
another battle took place, and again the Union- 
ists were driven back. Grant now resolved to 
fall suddenly upon Beauregard, who was at 
Petersburg, twenty-two miles from Richmond, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 191 

and crush him, before Lee knew where the 
Unionists were. Great haste had to be made 
to carry out this plan, and for two days and 
nights the fighting round Petersburg did not 
cease, the defenders driving back the Unionists 
with terrible loss. Lee soon came up, and 
placed his troops between the Union army and 
Richmond. Still the Unionists fought on, 
though they were getting worn out with fatigue 
and the great summer heat. They made a 
mine filled with gunpowder and blew it up, 
hoping to surprise the Confederates, and rush 
into the town in the confusion, but it had a 
contrary effect, causing fearful disorder in their 
own ranks; and so matters went on until the 
end of 1864, Grant and Lee facing each other 
at Petersburg, and skirmishing with varying 
success. The Confederates were the more often 
victors, but they could not, as Grant did, re- 
place any men who were killed, all able South- 
erners, even old men and boys, being already 
in the field, and their losses being terrible, the 
army was growing weaker and weaker every 
day. Longstreet, only half recovered of his 
great hurt, was back again among them, cheer- 



192 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

ing them with his presence, and they fought 
doggedly on. 

Meantime Sherman had started for Atlanta, 
leaving Chattanooga on the 6th of May. John- 
ston was hovering round him, bent on luring 
him away from his line of supplies, when he 
hoped to obtain an easy victory over him. 
With this end in view he avoided a big battle, 
only skirmishing every now and then, and fall- 
ing back after each encounter. The country 
was wild and mountainous ; it needed all Sher- 
man's cleverness to keep up his line of supplies, 
and every day he was getting further and fur- 
ther away from the depot where they were 
stored; and still Johnston retreated, until at 
last he entered the defenses round Atlanta it- 
self, Sherman having followed him a hundred 
miles, and lost many men on the journey. But 
the Southerners were very angry at what they 
supposed to be the retreat of their general, and 
removed him from the command, replacing him 
with Hood. On the 20th of July, Sherman be- 
gan a series of attacks in the wooded country 
round Atlanta ; one of his objects being to cut 
off the railroad, and prevent supplies from reach- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 193 

ing the town. This he succeeded in doing on 
the 27th of August, and Hood, unable to ob- 
tain supplies, fell back on Jonesboro, leaving 
Atlanta open to Sherman and his army ; and a 
great step was gained in the conquest of the 
South. Hood now left Jonesboro and boldly 
threw himself on Sherman's line of supplies, but 
Sherman, finding out his intention, followed 
rapidly in his footsteps. Hood, not daring to 
risk a battle, hurried on, taking the road by 
which Sherman had come from Chattanooga, 
and still Sherman followed, till all the hundred 
miles had been retraced ; and then he turned and 
went slowly back to Atlanta, burning and de- 
stroying everything as he went, till all behind 
him was a dreary wilderness, through which it 
was impossible for the Confederates to follow 
him. When he arrived at Atlanta he burnt the 
city to the ground, and then set out towards 
Savannah, through the swamps and rice-fields. 
The Confederates tried to stop his progress by 
placing felled trees across the road, but on the 
loth of December he arrived before the city, 
which at once surrendered, the small Confeder- 
ate garrison, which held it, having retreated to 



194 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

South Carolina. At the end of January, 1865, 
Sherman left Savannah, and marched through 
North Carolina, taking Columbia and Charles- 
ton, and pushing the Confederate forces fur- 
ther and further north, though Johnston who 
had resumed his command, made every effort to 
hold his ground. Matters now were desperate 
for the South ; on all sides the Unionists with 
their much larger forces were successful. Lee's 
army was getting weaker and weaker, and on the 
2d of April it gave way before a furious attack 
from Grant, and first Petersburg, and then 
Richmond, surrendered. Lee had now only 
20,000 men, and as a last forlorn hope, he hur- 
ried off to join Johnston. All his supplies had 
been seized, but he had sent on orders that suffi- 
cient for the journey was to be ready for him at 
a depot on the way. But by some mistake the 
orders were not carried out, and on his arrival 
there he found that no food was to be had. He 
dared not wait, for the Unionists were close 
upon his heels, and hastened on, hoping to 
be able to obtain supplies at some place on the 
way. Meantime the sufferings of his soldiers 
were terrible ; starving and worn out, numbers 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 195 

surrendered, but still Lee and the brave rem- 
nant kept on their weary way, till their strength 
was all gone, and after a last desperate stand, 
they gave themselves up. Grant treated them 
with the greatest kindness and respect for their 
long and gallant resistance, and his men wel- 
comed them as comrades. Lee's first act after 
surrender was to ask Grant for food for his 
starving men, who had long been on less than 
half rations. It was a sad day when Lee had 
to take leave of the troops that had followed 
him so long, with faithful and loving devotion, 
and tears rained from all eyes when, with a 
choking voice, he said : " Men, we have 
fought through the war together ; I have done 
the best I could for you," and slowly and 
mournfully they all dispersed to their homes. 

Johnston saw it was useless to continue the 
struggle, and he, too, gave in. Jefferson Davis, 
the deposed President, disguised in woman's 
garments, tried to escape to Mexico, but was 
captured with his wife and family and taken 
as a prisoner to Fort Monroe. And so the 
long Civil War came to an end, and the 
generals who had gone through so many excit- 



196 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

ing adventures, settled down to quiet business 
and domestic life ; Lee as the head of a college ; 
Johnston as the manager of a despatch depart- 
ment; Beauregard as the head of a railway, 
and Longstreet and Hood as partners together 
in a business in New Orleans. 

In this brief account of the war the splendid 
achievements of the American navy have not 
been dwelt on. But in the War of the Rebel- 
lion, as in all other wars in which our people 
have ever engaged, the navy did noble service. 
In the second year of the war the fleet under Ad- 
miral Farragut, sailed up the Mississippi, fought 
and escaped the forts around New Orleans, and 
took that city ; which our troops, under command 
of General Butler, occupied till the end of the war, 
cutting off all aid to the South from that quarter. 
This was only the beginning of a series of naval 
successes led by Farragut, Davis, Porter and 
others, which aided and supplemented the efforts 
of our troops to the end of the war, and checked 
or captured numerous English blockade runners 
who tried their utmost to aid the South. An 
old wooden ship, the "Mississippi," with which 
the brave Perry had long before opened trade 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 197 

with Japan, attacked and sunk in the harbor, 
the Rebel Ram ''Manasses," which the South 
believed to be invincible. More than a year 
later, when Farragut's fleet tried to pass, at 
midnight, the Rebel batteries around Port Hud- 
son, the old frigate ''Mississippi" ran aground 
in shallow water, and alone fought the batteries 
until her powder magazine caught fire, and her 
men escaped in boats. She was burned to the 
water's edge and sank where she lay — a brave 
and fitting death. Dewey, who took Manila, 
was then Lieutenant on board the '* Mississippi " 
and actively conducted the engagement that 
night. 



CHAPTER IX 

It is said that, on the 14th of April, 1865, 
Lincoln was warned in a dream of some great 
danger near at hand. He dreamed he saw a 
flag-draped coffin in the East Room of the White 
House and heard the weeping people about say, 
" The President is dead." On the evening of 
the same day he went with his wife and some 
friends to the theatre at Washington, to see a 
performance of " Our American Cousin." Sud- 
denly in the middle of the piece the sharp re- 
port of a pistol rang through the house ; a man 
jumped from the President's box on to the stage, 
and although the spur of one of his riding boots 
caught in the American flag which draped the 
box, and the mishap cost him a broken leg, the 
whole thing was done so suddenly that he had 
time to brandish his weapon and shout "Sic, 
Semper Tyrrannis," before he disappeared 
through the stage entrance. Instantly the whole 

house was in an uproar. The leading actress, 
198 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 199 

Laura Keene, seemed the first to fully realize the 
situation. She flew to the dying President and 
lifted his head into her lap. Some of the stage 
people now declared that the assassin looked like 
John Wilkes Booth, the actor — who had played 
in the theatre and thus knew the ground. Pur- 
suit was instant, but the murderer had already 
mounted his horse and escaped. He hid in a 
barn some miles from Washington and re- 
mained there several days, while soldiers, police 
and people searched for him. Meanwhile a 
certain Dr. Mudd, a former friend, had set 
his broken leg ; but this relief came too late ; 
gangrene had already set in, and the wretch was 
practically a dying man when he was discovered. 
As he refused to yield, the barn was fired ; and 
as Booth in desperate straits crawled to the 
door, and, still defiant, made an effort to escape, 
the light from the flames revealed him, and a 
pistol shot from his captors put an end to his 
misery. Booth was one of the most fiery of 
rebels, a young man of great physical beauty 
and genius as an actor. It afterwards turned 
out that a conspiracy had been planned to kill 
the President and members of his cabinet. 



200 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

When lots were drawn it fell upon Booth to kill 
the President, and he carried out his promise. 
The same night Secretary of State Seward was 
stabbed in his own house, but recovered. The 
conspiracy was unraveled; four of its leaders 
were hanged and the others were imprisoned. 
In the death of Lincoln the South lost its best 
friend. 

The whole country mourned the death of their 
President, for he was much beloved, and their re- 
joicings over the finish of the long Civil War 
were dimmed and forgotten, in grief at their 
loss. Strong and kind, pure of heart and firm 
of will, full of love for his country and his fel- 
low-men, every one acknowledged him to be one 
of the greatest of our heroes. 

Andrew Johnson now became President. He 
had begun life in a tailor's shop, and had not 
learnt to read till he was ten, or to write till 
after he was twenty. But he was a man of very 
strong will, and making up his mind in his 
earliest boyhood that he would be a great man 
some day, he had steadily worked his way up- 
wards, and become known and respected, for a 
time occupying the position of Governor of Ten- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 201 

nessee. In the South he had been hated and 
feared, and more than once had the Southerners 
burnt mock images of him ; and so when he be- 
came President at the end of the Civil AVar, it 
was thought that his punishment of the rebel- 
lious States would be very severe. But to the 
surprise of every one he was far more gentle with 
them than Congress, whose opinion was that the 
Southern States ought not to join the Union until 
it pleased Congress to allow them to do so, in 
years to come. Johnson, on the contrary, 
wanted to pardon them, and allow them to re- 
turn to the Union at once, if they would promise 
to faithfully obey and support the laws of the 
Union, and abolish slavery, once and for all. 
This difference of opinion led to a long and bit- 
ter quarrel between the President and the Con- 
gress ; every day the breach between them grew 
wider, till in 1867 Congress tried to limit his 
power by forbidding him to change Government 
officials without the consent of the Senate. This 
roused in Johnson a spirit of obstinacy, and he 
at once removed the Secretary of War and ap- 
pointed another in his place. Congress seized 
the opportunity to accuse him of various acts 



202 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

against the Union ; he was brought to trial, but 
nothing could be proved against him, and he was 
set free. Congress, however, had their way with 
regard to the Southern States, which were not 
allowed to join the Union for five years, and in 
the meantime were kept under very strict rule. 
In Johnson's time slavery was abolished forever 
in the United States of America. 

During the Civil War, while our people had 
their hands full at home, Napoleon, Emperor of 
France, sent an army into Mexico, and con- 
quered it, with the wild idea of making it into 
an Empire, and he set on the throne the Aus- 
trian Archduke Maximillian, who proclaimed 
that any one who resisted his authority should be 
shot. Our people could do nothing but protest 
at the time; but directly the Civil War was 
over they insisted on the French troops being 
removed from Mexico, saying they would drive 
them out if they would not go quietly. The 
French, knowing they were not strong enough 
to successfully oppose the American army, 
hastened back to their own land, leaving the 
poor Emperor to his fate, and hardly had they 
gone than the Mexicans rose up in arms, seized 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 203 

the Emperor, and remembering his threat to 
them, shot him to death in his own courtyard. 

In 1866, the ocean telegraph was laid across 
the Atlantic by Cyrus W. Field. 

In 1867, the United States made the important 
purchase from Russia of Alaska, a vast country, 
nearly 600,000 square miles in size, and rich in 
furs, fisheries, timber, gold and many other 
valuable things. The value of Alaska is only 
beginning to be generally known. 

In the same year Nebraska was added to the 
Union. 

In 1868, General Ulysses S. Grant, the great 
victor of the Civil War, was chosen President, 
and wisely and well as he had ruled his army, 
did he now govern his country. Peace and 
prosperity smiled on the land and many dis- 
putes, which in former days would have led to 
war, were settled without strife. Trade flour- 
ished, and the gold, silver, iron and coal mines 
were largely worked; thousands of miles of 
railroad were laid ; the chief of which ran from 
New York to San Francisco, a distance of over 
3,300 miles; and nowadays a traveler can go 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific in less time than 



204 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

he could go from Washington to Boston a cen- 
tury ago. Grant was known all over the world 
as one of the cleverest commanders of the 
age, and when his years of power came to 
an end, and he set out on a long tour, visiting 
Europe, Africa, India, China and Japan, every- 
where he went the people sought to do him 
honor. 

In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes became Presi- 
dent. He was a highly educated man, a Har- 
vard student and a barrister, and in the Civil 
War had distinguished himself and risen to the 
rank of general. He was a man of strong will 
and great ability, and it was owing to his skilful 
management that a great dispute which arose 
between employers and their men, was peace- 
fully settled. This dispute or strike as it was 
called, the men refusing to work unless their 
wages were increased, was curiously the result 
of the prosperity of the country in the days of 
Grant ; as many adventurers seized the oppor- 
tune time to float schemes and companies, which 
came to nothing, and led to many failures; 
manufacturies ceasing, banks closing their doors, 
and many employers being obliged to cut down 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 205 

the number of their men, and the amount of 
their wages. 

The Sioux Indians too, gave trouble. They 
tried to prevent the whites taking the gold which 
had been discovered in the Black Hills of Da- 
kota, and fought as they had never fought be- 
fore, for they knew if they were crushed this 
time their power would be broken forever. 
General Custer, called by the Indians "Long 
Yellow Hair" was fiercest against them; but 
one sad day a large band of Indians surprised 
him at a distance from the camp, when he had 
only a few men with him, and put them all to 
death ; Rain-in-the-Face, an Indian chief who 
hated the brave white, even cutting the heart out 
of his body on the battle-field in token of re- 
venge. But this was the last triumph of the 
Indians. Thirsting for vengeance, the whites 
pursued them to their strongholds, and did not 
cease the conflict until there was no fear of their 
ever rising again. 

In this same year of 1876 the hundredth an- 
niversary of the Declaration of Independence 
was celebrated by a great World's Fair at Phila- 
delphia, where the Declaration had been signed. 



2o6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

All the civilized nations of the world took part 
in it, and it was soon seen that the United States 
was far ahead of any of them in inventions, 
chief of which was the telephone, while in art 
she was behind some of the other countries. 

In the same year Colorado was added to the 
Union. 

In 1 88 1, James A. Garfield was chosen Presi- 
dent. He, like so many of our great men, had 
been born in poverty, and rose by his own hard 
work and merit to greatness. All his youth was 
spent in working as a laborer, a carpenter, a 
harvester, anything in fact by which he could 
make money to pay for his schooling. At first 
he had to teach himself, but by working very 
hard, he at last saved enough money to enter 
Williams College, and in two years' time he left 
it with the highest honors, and was appointed 
President of Hiram College. Although he 
loved learning so much, yet when his country 
needed him in the time of the Civil War, he 
threv/ aside his books, and fought bravely for 
the Union. In 1863, he became a member of 
Congress, and rising higher and higher in the 
esteem of his countrymen, after seventeen years 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 207 

he was chosen President. But his well-earned 
honors were not long to be his, for before four 
months had gone by he was shot at Washington 
railway station by a half-crazed politician named 
Guiteau, to whom he had refused an office 
under Government. He did not die at once, 
but lingered on in great suffering for two 
months. 

Chester Alan Arthur, the Vice-President suc- 
ceeded Garfield. He was the son of an Irish 
clergyman ; a scholarly man. President Arthur 
had begun life as a teacher, then became a 
lawyer, had filled several political positions, 
among them collector of the port of New York, 
and had fought in the Civil War. He was 
noted for his social graces ; and it was often 
said that not since the early days of the Repub- 
lic — when manners were more courtly — had 
there been a president who preserved the eti- 
quette of his position as he did. In his time 
the Brooklyn bridge over the wide East River, 
one of the engineering marvels of the world, 
was finished, and finished too, was a great mar- 
ble monument in memory of Washington, which 
had been many years in building. 



2o8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

In 1884, Grover Cleveland became President. 
His life had been an adventurous one, begin- 
ning in a country store ; after which he taught 
the blind in a New York Institute, and leaving 
there, became a clerk in a Buffalo law firm, 
where he rapidly learnt law, and was admitted 
to the bar. He was the first of the Presidents 
after the Civil War, who had not been in the 
army, but he had a mother and sister, depend- 
ent on him for their daily bread, and he could 
not afford to risk his life, though he longed, as a 
young man will, to fight for his country. His 
public character won him the love and respect 
of his countrymen, who chose him as sheriff, 
mayor, governor, and finally, highest honor of 
all, President. 

In his time many complaints were made 
about the Chinese, who had come to America in 
great numbers, and, having left their wives and 
children in their own country, were willing to 
work for much smaller wages than the Ameri- 
can laborer could live on ; and a law was 
passed to stop their coming here. 

There were strikes too, in various parts of the 
country, which were chiefly caused by some 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 209 

discontented idle people called Anarchists, but 
they were tried and imprisoned, and the trouble 
blew over. 

Benjamin Harrison was the next President. 
His grandfather had held the same high post 
forty-eight years before. He had been a Uni- 
versity student, a lawyer, and a general in the 
war. One of the first events after he became 
President, was the purchase of Oklahoma from 
the Indians, a tract of country 39,000 square 
miles in size. At noon on April the 2d, 1889, 
at which hour settlers were allowed to enter the 
new state, over 50,000 persons were waiting to 
hasten in and choose plots of land. When the 
signal was given there was a wild rush, and be- 
fore night came on, most of the land was 
already staked out in claims, and several towns 
begun. 

In the same year four new states were added 
to the Union, North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Idaho and Wyoming. 

In the same year there was a terrible accident 
in Pennsylvania ; a large dam burst, letting out 
a great flood of water, which swept away almost 
the whole of the 'jusy manufacturing town of 



2IO HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Johnstown, drowning hundreds of people, and 
destroying an enormous amount of property. 

There were also a few little disputes with 
various foreign countries, but they were all sat- 
isfactorily settled. 

In 1892, the four hundredth anniversary of 
the discovery of America by Columbus was 
celebrated by a huge exhibition at Chicago, 
called the World's Columbian Exposition. 

In 1893, Cleveland was again chosen Presi- 
dent. During this second term of his, from 
some cause or another, business did not flourish, 
and there were many failures and strikes ; the 
chief of which was a great railroad strike at 
Chicago, when the soldiers had to be called in 
to keep order. 

In 1895, there was a dispute between Venezu- 
ela and British Guiana about the boundary line 
between them ; for more than half a century 
there had been trouble over this, and now rich 
gold mines having been discovered on the land 
which they both claimed, matters came to a 
crisis ; but at length it was settled by Arbitra- 
tion ; /. <r., the matter was decided by a third 
party. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 211 

In 1896, there was great excitement and dis- 
cussion over the question whether there should 
be a gold coinage only, or the free coinage of 
both gold and silver j some people took one 
side, and some the other, calling themselves 
the Gold Party and the Silver Party, and at 
the election the Gold Party triumphed, their 
man McKinley being chosen President. He 
is a very clever man, who has devoted a great 
deal of time and thought to the matter of 
customs and duties and rates ; indeed, in 
1890 he drew up a whole new scheme or 
Tariff, called the McKinley Tariff, reducing 
the duties on some articles, and increasing it on 
others, and placing the whole system on a much 
improved footing. 

The last very important event in the his- 
tory of our country, is the successful war in 
Cuba. This island, since its discovery by 
Columbus has, until the time of which we are 
now speaking, belonged to the Spaniards, who 
governed it in the most cruel and unjust way. 
Again and again have the unfortunate Cubans, 
unable to endure the tyranny of their con- 
querors, risen in rebellion ; indeed, between the 



212 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

years 1868 and 1878 in particular, peace was 
unknown in the island. Our people were very 
sorry for the Cubans, and very indignant at the 
cruel way in which they were treated. We tried 
to persuade the Spaniards to be more gentle 
with them, and finding persuasion useless, even 
offered to purchase the island from her, but the 
offer was refused. She did not know how to 
help them as she was at peace with Spain, but 
many private people in the United States sent 
over arms and men to help the Cubans in their 
frequent risings; and so matters went on till 
early in 1898 when the Americans sent their 
man-of-war the '< Maine " to pay a friendly visit 
to the Spaniards in Cuba, hoping by courtesy 
and friendliness to induce them to alter their 
harsh government of the island; but on the 
night of the 15th of February, while at anchor 
in the harbor, the "Maine" was mysteriously 
blown up, and nearly all her men killed. The 
Spaniards crowded to the scene of the disaster, 
professing the greatest regret and surprise, and 
disclaiming any knowledge of how it happened. 
Our people said little until they had gone very 
carefully into the matter, but when they found 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 213 

that the ship had evidently been blown up by a 
mine at the bottom of the harbor, they could 
no longer doubt that it was the work of the 
Spaniards, and, their patience at an end, they 
declared war on Spain on the 21st of April, and 
busy preparations began. The United States 
fleet in the east under Admiral Dewey was 
ordered to proceed to the Philippines, to attack 
the Spanish fleet there ; all the ports in Cuba 
were blockaded in order to prevent ships with 
provisions and arms going to the relief of the 
Spaniards, and on the ist of May our people 
sent over an envoy to General Garcia, the 
leader of the Cubans, offering him all the help 
he wanted, men, arms and ships, and it was 
arranged that a force under General Shafter 
should march to Santiago, while the fleet under 
Admiral Sampson should blockade the entrance 
to Santiago harbor. 

While all these arrangements were being 
carefully carried out, a wonderfully daring feat 
was attempted by our fleet. On the 28th of 
May the ''Merrimac," laden with coal was de- 
spatched to Cuba. When all the coal had been 
distributed, everything of any value was re- 



214 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

moved from the ship, and all the officers and 
men left it, with the exception of Lieutenant 
Hobson, and a few volunteers, who remained 
on board to put the last final touches to their 
task, which was to sink the Merrimac at the en- 
trance to Santiago harbor, thus making it im- 
possible for the Spanish ships to get out to sea. 
It had been arranged that, as they came within 
sight of the harbor, an American ship was to 
bear down upon them, and pretend to chase 
them, firing blank shots, so as to lead the 
Spaniards to suppose that it was one of their 
own ships, which was entering the harbor ; but 
instead of blank shots, they were greeted with 
real shots by the Spaniards, who continued 
firing until the ship went down, and then 
claimed Hobson and his men as prisoners, 
seizing them as they were bravely swimming 
away from the vanishing ship. They were 
soon exchanged, however, for prisoners taken by 
our people. 

The troops were now approaching Santiago, 
and on the first of July a victory was obtained 
over the Spaniards after much hard fighting at 
El Caney and San Juan, two important posi- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 215 

tioiis ; and fighting began round Santiago. The 
Spaniards fought bravely, but our men fought 
better, and soon it was easy to see who would be 
the victors. When the Spanish admiral saw that 
the town was doomed he felt it would be better 
to make a desperate effort to break through the 
ring of our ships at the mouth of the harbor, 
and perhaps escape. Our fleet had been block- 
ading the harbor for five weeks, but they were 
all on the alert, and when the first Spanish ship 
appeared, they instantly began firing, and con- 
tinued unceasingly until every one of the Span- 
ish ships was disabled. Following close on this 
great victory came the surrender of Santiago on 
the 7 th of July. 

Meanwhile, in Manila Bay, in the Philippines, 
Admiral Dewey had been equally successful, 
winning a great victory over the Spanish fleet 
there; which ended in its practical destruc- 
tion ; while a third expedition had landed in 
Porto Rico, and marched victoriously across the 
island, between July the 25 th and August the 
14th, clearing eleven towns of the enemy. The 
last battle in the war took place in Porto Rico 
just a few hours after the town of Manila in the 



2i6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Philippines surrendered to our victorious troops, 
and then the Spanish everywhere defeated, 
begged for peace. A treaty was signed on the 
1 8th of August, Spain giving up to the United 
States Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines. 
The United States gave in exchange for the lat- 
ter ^20,000,000. Individual Spaniards have 
often since been heard to complain of the small- 
ness of this sum, declaring that the Philippines 
are worth many times this sum ; they seem to 
forget that according to the chances of war and 
the custom of nations, the United States was not 
obliged to pay anything, and did so out of a 
sense of justice towards a much poorer nation. 
Not since our Civil War has any president been, 
called upon to deal with such trying and com- 
plicated questions as fell to the lot of President 
McKinley during the Spanish-American war. 
A large number of our people were from the 
start very much opposed to what they called 
"expansion." They felt we had territory 
enough to manage, and they did not wish our 
Government to enter the field of foreign con- 
quest so long occupied by England and other 
nations. So strong was this sentiment that it 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 217 

was made one of the political issues in the presi- 
dential campaign, which took place in the fall 
of 1900, when Mr. McKinley ran for the second 
time against William Jennings Bryan, who 
stood for the free coinage of silver and anti- 
expansion. But Mr. McKinley was reelected 
President by a large majority, which goes to 
show that most of the people of the United 
States believe in a gold standard and are not op- 
posed to holding more territory. 

The gratitude of the people of Cuba to the 
United States for freeing them from the yoke of 
Spain was deep and heartfelt. Soon some of 
the Cubans began to agitate for their total free- 
dom from any other country, and for power to 
form a Government of their own and become a 
separate nation. This was practically the con- 
ditions on which the United States freed them ; 
and the people of our country have no wish to 
make Cuba a permanent part of the United 
States except of her own free will. Meanwhile, 
as she is not yet in a position to rule herself, 
she remains under the authority of the United 
States. 

Porto Rico has given us no trouble ; she came 



2i8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

gladly under our protection, and has only com- 
plained of her poverty and lack of business enter- 
prise during the period of reconstruction. Much 
has been done during the year 1901, to put her 
into a position to help in her own development. 
The Philippines have given us a good deal 
of trouble. Her people are made up of mixed 
races, who have many old and factious troubles 
of their own to settle, and they, too, after their 
experience with Spain, wanted to be a free and 
independent people. This feeling was fanned 
into a flame by a man named Aguinaldo, who 
as soon as the Spaniards left the country began 
to pose as a National patriot and leader of the 
people. After a time he got together an army, 
and kept up an intermittent and irregular war- 
fare, which greatly harassed our troops stationed 
in the Philippines, and together with the hard- 
ships of the climate on our men, caused the loss 
of many hundreds of valuable lives. The war- 
fare, mostly of the guerrilla sort, and scat- 
tered over a wide expanse of unknown country, 
has been hard for regular soldiers to cope with. 
At last a surprise was planned by General Funs- 
ton and others. Aguinaldo was entrapped and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 219 

taken early in the spring of 1901, and held 
prisoner by the United States. He took the 
oath of allegiance, solemnly promising never 
again to take up arms against our nation. With 
his arrest, active war in the Philippines came 
to an end. It remains a question of time only 
for the people of the Philippines to become a 
loyal, contented and prosperous part of our 
republic. Our country has already absorbed 
and made happy people from all races and con- 
ditions of men. There is no reason why the 
Filipinos should prove an exception. 

The first year of the new century was 
destined, however, to witness a tragedy at 
home which brought sorrow to every heart. 
President McKinley, who was so greatly 
beloved, was cruelly shot and mortally 
wounded by an anarchist named Czolgosz, 
while holding a public reception at the 
Pan-American Exposition in the city of 
Buffalo on the sixth day of September, 1901. 
The assassin was in the line of people 
whom the President was receiving, his 
right hand covered with a handkerchief as 
if it had been injured. As he approached 



220 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Mr. McKinley he extended his left hand 
and immediately fired two shots from a 
pistol concealed in the right. Intense 
excitement followed this cowardly act. 
The President was found to be mortally 
wounded, and died a week afterward, Sep- 
tember 14, 1901. 

This terrible crime, perpetrated at a time 
when peace and prosperity were making so 
many hearts happy in our land, sent a thrill 
of horror throughout the world. President 
McKinley had served only six months of 
his second term of office and was succeeded 
by Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, 
who became President, and is the youngest 
Chief Executive since the foundation of the 
Government. President Roosevelt, young 
as he is, has had a long and honorable 
career in public office, having served in 
city. State and national affairs for nearly 
twenty years. 



Movernw 



OCT 23 1901 



